According to the 19th livestock census conducted in 2012, the country has over 512 million animals of economic importance such as cattle, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig, equine, camel, mithun and yak. However, no reliable data is available for the pastures and grazing lands. Rough, unverified estimates indicate that such lands have dwindled from about 70 million hectares at the time of Independence to a mere 12 million hectares now. Worst, most of these lands are highly degraded with very low capacity to support animals. Forage available in these areas is generally poor in quality and is, therefore, unable to provide the needed energy, protein and minerals to the productive animals. The area devoted to growing fodder, too, is meagre - less than five per cent of the total arable land. Expansion in this land is neither feasible nor desirable in a country where land is scarce and its demand for agriculture, infrastructure, housing, industries and other uses huge. Proper upkeep of the available pastures and improvement in their productivity is therefore indispensable.
The 23rd International Grassland Congress held in New Delhi last month discussed the plight of grazing lands along with other critical issues concerning grasslands. One of the major reasons for the poor condition of the pastures is that they do not belong to any particular agency or government department for their maintenance. Even where the forest or revenue departments claim the ownership of such community lands, they evade responsibility for their management.
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This apart, although India has a national policy for almost every conceivable sector, none exists for the grasslands. The old but subsequently abandoned Forest Policy of 1894 had laid down some modalities for grazing but these applied only to the protected forests. The Forest Policy of 1954 generally sought to restrict the use of forest lands for grazing and allowed it only under special circumstances where it was not deemed inimical to the health of the forests. More or less the same position was maintained in the National Forest Policy of 1988 although it mooted the concept of community's involvement in regulating grazing on the forest lands. But non-forest lands, including village common lands, used traditionally for grazing, are not covered in any policy formulated by the Centre or states so far.
Some half-hearted bids were made in the 1990s to prepare a "grazing and livestock management policy" and a "national policy for common property resource lands". However, these documents seldom went beyond the draft stage. Although subsequently some expert committees, including a subgroup of the erstwhile Planning Commission on fodder and pasture management (2011), studied the issue of grassland management and made some useful suggestions, their reports, too, did not get due notice and remained on paper.
Now that attention has once again been drawn to this critical policy lapse - even Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh spoke about it at the grassland Congress - it may be hoped that some concrete action will follow. Since land is essentially a state subject under the Constitution, the major onus of action on this count lies with the states. At least the states having sizeable proportion of the population subsisting on common grazing lands-based animal husbandry should come forward to initiate programmes for the improvement of these lands. Otherwise, not only will the livelihood of millions of people be in jeopardy but also the agriculture sector's gross domestic product (farm GDP) might suffer, as nearly 30 per cent of it comes from the livestock sector.