| Abstract |
Much has been written about the ongoing growth revolution and structural transformation of livestock production. The contribution of livestock sector to poverty reduction, food and nutritional security, and livelihood support of rural poor, on the one hand, and to greenhouse gas emissions and safety and integrity of public health systems, on the other, is also quite well documented. But, the progress on designing livestock sector programs and policies that can achieve the twin objectives of enhanced food and nutritional security and mitigating environmental and human health has been lacking at best in many developing countries including India. The approaches to formulating such policies will depend on a greater understanding of changing role of livestock in agricultural economy. In particular, how the sector can better respond towards society’s expectations of meeting rising demand for livestock products at affordable prices requires a closer understanding of how the role of livestock has been changing over time, in meeting the energy and nutrient needs of agriculture. The present paper attempts to address some of these issues.
The main objectives are to:
(i) estimate trends in energy use in Indian agriculture and the changing role of draught animal power in meeting the energy demand at national and regional/state level and farm sizes; and
(ii) estimate nutrient intake trends in Indian agriculture and the share of livestock population (manure) in meeting the nutrient needs.
The importance of draught animals in rural energy as well as in agricultural production in developing countries is well recognized. However, as a result of introduction of mechanical power in agriculture, use of draught animal power has declined significantly during the last three decades. Similarly expansion of modern sources of energy like LPG has also reduced the use of animal dung/biogas in household cooking. One of the reasons for the declining share could be severe constraints on availability of grazing lands and competing use of land for food-fodder-fibre and fuel. The preference of livestock owners has shifted from draft animals to milch animals. However, draft animal power is still relevant and important in Indian agriculture due to the fact that majority of farmers (about 82%) are small and marginal with less than one hectare farm size and draft animals are more suitable to the needs of such farmers where mechanized implements cannot be used or poor farmers do not have adequate access to credit. Draught animals compete for scarce and shrinking feed and fodder resources with milch animals and that has led to a debate about utility of large draught animal population. However, there is a need to increase the energy output from present stock of draught animals and improve working efficiency. It is quite evident that present approaches to mechanization in the country have generally emphasized larger machines like tractors, combine harvesters, etc., which makes it more difficult to smallholders to use such machines. The study suggests use of custom-hire system to solve some of the problems of small and marginal farmers.
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