The soaring demand for animal-based protein products and the consequential spike in their prices seem to be impacting the profile of India’s livestock sector. The predominance of cattle is gradually waning with relatively smaller animals like goats, sheep and pigs gaining more space to meet the enhanced demand for meat. A noteworthy aspect of the changing population-mix of the larger livestock (cattle and buffaloes) is that less productive, indigenous cows are being replaced by high milk-yielding buffaloes. There is, moreover, no social injunction on the consumption and export of their meat.
Among the smaller farm animals, the population of goats is rising faster than that of sheep since the former produces some milk as well. In fact, goat milk now accounts for nearly four per cent of the country’s total milk output. Apart from demand, other factors like shrinking pastures and grazing land and rising cost of fodder, too, are tilting the scales in favour of goats and sheep — which are small eaters compared to larger animals. Moreover, small animals are known to be more efficient converters of food into protein (meat and milk) and multiply relatively faster — the birth of twins, triplets and even quadruplets are quite common in goats, sheep and pigs.
However, in areas where irrigation-based intensive farming is in vogue, the number of buffaloes is increasing thanks to the availability of ample crop residues to supplement fodder supplies.
These trends, significant as they are for animal husbandry policies, have been captured and quantified in an analysis of demographic changes in livestock population by a team of experts led by Dr A K Dikshit of the Delhi-based Society for Economic and Social Research. (This study has been reported in the February 2012 issue of The Indian Journal of Animal Sciences.) It reveals that the proportion of large animals in the country’s total livestock population slipped from 73 per cent in 1987 to 66 per cent in 2003, while that of smaller animals swelled from 27 per cent to 34 per cent.
The annual compound growth rate of cattle population has been assessed at a mere 0.34 per cent. This compares poorly with a near 2.0 per cent annual increase in the population of buffaloes and still higher 2.52 per cent of goats and 2.27 per cent of sheep. Buffaloes seem to be preferred over cows because of their higher yield of fat-rich milk that fetches a higher price in the market, even though they need more fodder than cattle. But the increase in the buffalo population is confined largely to a few regions, such as Punjab, Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat in the north-west, besides the eastern plains and the Western Ghats.
Like buffaloes, growth in the population of sheep is also not evenly spread. In fact, sheep seem to be losing popularity in regions like north-western and eastern plains, central highlands and north-eastern hills. The fast-vanishing common grasslands for sheep grazing and preference for goat meat over sheep meat could be the reasons for this. Goats, on the other hand, are showing a positive growth in almost all regions. Interestingly, even the pig population has registered an impressive growth in most parts of the country, barring the north-western plains and the Deccan plateau where pork consumption is low. The maximum growth in the population of pigs has, predictably, been in the north-eastern hills, where pigs have been part of the backyard livestock rearing tradition, and in Assam and its adjoining parts of West Bengal. The overall countrywide annual growth in the pig population has been reckoned at 2.35 per cent.
Among the sources of lean meat, preferred by health-conscious people, poultry is expanding at a rather fast pace. The maximum density of poultry population (number of birds per sq km) has been observed in the south (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) followed by the east (Assam and parts of West Bengal and Orissa).
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These findings clearly show that animal husbandry promotion policies, focused largely on bigger animals, need to be broadened to include smaller meat-producing animals as well. This is imperative also because small animals are reared mostly by tiny landholders and landless people. Such an approach would help augment meat supplies to keep the prices under check.
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