Small ruminant farming and livelihood security in India: Present status and opportunities for enhancing farmers’ income

In the present paper, an attempt was made to explore the role of small ruminants rearing in livelihood and nutritional security of millions of landless, marginal and small farmers. Goat is the second largest livestock species after cattle in terms of number. Goat and sheep constitute 67.5% (135.17 million) and 32.5% (65.07 million) of total small ruminant's population (200 million) of the country respectively making 10 percent of the world small ruminant's population. Country stood second in goat and shee ppopulation, first in goat milk production and second in goat meat and goat skin production in the world. It is an important source of income to farmers particularly in disadvantageous regions in the country where crop failure is the repeated phenomenon. Households cultivating less than 2.0 ha of land (marginal and small)arethe maincustodian and possess more than 76% goat and 70% of sheep population of the country, respectively. The demand for small ruminant is basically a derived demand necessitated by the demand for meat, milk, wool, hides, skins etc. High income elastic for livestock products, increasing domestic consumption due to increment in per capita income growth, variation in taste preference and urbanization are some of the driving factors of increasing demand for livestock products. The gap between demand and supply of goat meat/mutton will widen in future as meat demand may grow at faster rate than that of production. Goat milk which is also known as natural functional food contributes 4% to central milk pool (127 million tonnes). Goat based integrated livelihood models developed based on participatory research suggest that with 15 adult female goat and 25 chicks yield a net income of 82, 727 per year. This model is suitable for landless and marginal group of farmers. Low cost goat technologies not only help in productivity enhancement but also improve the farmers ’ price realization. Per goat per year return over variable cost was estimated to be 4800 to 5000. However, it was estimated to 4200–4500 per sheep per year. Small ruminant rearing at small scale may utilize family labour (women labour) efficiently and the problem of malnutrition in women and children may also solved. These returns may increase if farmer target festive season sale. Furthermore, through simple technological and marketing interventions-vaccination of goats, deworming, nutrition supplements, breeding with improved bucks and sale of kids at their commercial age may accrue economic gain of 5688 crore, net of cost at country level. To fetch these gains, efforts should be made to make goat farming more organized. Bridging knowledge gap, veterinary support and linking goat farmers with markets are the other key aspects for sustainable goat production and enhancing farmers’ income.