Focus on livestock and dairy farming
Around 30-35 million people in rural areas are engaged in livestock farming. This sector, if promoted, can contribute significantly to alleviate poverty.
According to the World Bank’s World Development Report 2008, GDP growth, originating in agriculture, is about four times more effective in raising incomes than any other sector. The development of agriculture is synonymous with the development of economy, livestock being part of it.
Farmers play a vital role in agricultural production and hence need special focus. The second important segment is service providers. Their role and behaviour directly affects the efficiency of farmers in handling livestock. All departments providing basic needs of livestock like, veterinary hospitals, medical stores, loan-giving institutes, market players, suppliers of fertiliser for fodder etc., to farmers fall in the category of service providers.
Being a member of an agrarian family, living in village and spending 30 days among farmers for collecting data during this research work with a random sampling of 100 farmers of three different villages Sahaba, Jasak and Wajhoka of District Sargodha, I collected sufficient knowledge about farmers.
The farmers were asked 75 questions each to know about their income sources (milk, meat, crop, off-farm), and saving made from these sources etc. However, here only livestock-related problems of farmers, which were observed and calculated from collected data, would be discussed.
The foremost observation was that farmer’s potential was not being utilised.
Some 68 per cent of farmers owned livestock. After crops, livestock is the second important source of farmer’s income. So, most farmers’ families living in rural areas have animals and they desire to enlarge the number of animals to enhance their income.
The 32 per cent of farmers were not involved in livestock activities. When asked they said they wanted to have animals but could not because of their high costs, lack of guidance and non-availability of high quality animals. They lamented that they were deprived of a source of income, unable to alleviate their poverty.
The land and livestock output always remains uncertain due to natural disaster, climatic conditions, death of animals etc and the farmers need financial support to run farming and family systems. Some 17 per cent of farmers said they were taking credit from banks while the majority (83 per cent) said they were not, due to high interest rate, high per month installment and cumbersome process of loan disbursement.
Beside there were a lot of other problems like lack of specific area required for animal’s proper growth, lack of market information, medical treatment for animals, least know-how about latest techniques of raising production (milk and meat) etc. All these factors lead to low productivity, affecting adversely disposable income level and small savings of these families. This, in turn, is having a negative impact on their livelihood, security and socio-economic status.
Further, women are the central part of the farming system. Over 65 per cent of farmers said that their women work at farms with them. Handling of livestock like feeding, milking, etc. are mostly carried out by females. Basic reason of their devotion to livestock is the comparatively less physical work.
The development of livestock suffers because of their lack of knowledge and training. They fail in saving their livestock. If they are granted access to finances and if proper attention is paid on their skill improvement, they would make more significant contribution to raising livestock production and providing food security.
There is a need to focus on agricultural policy especially on increasing livestock output by utilising farmer’s potential. It is only possible by solving problems confronted by farmers.
Service providers: While replying to queries, 84 per cent of farmers said that they were not satisfied with the performance of the veterinary doctors. Most of the hospitals are in towns, and it is very difficult for them to take their animals for check-up. Severity of diseases or unavailability of transport is also a hindrance which may, quite often, result in death of animals.
Another factor, the farmers said, was the disease of the udders which deprived the farmers of milk for a few months which was a big loss.
Most vaccines are temperature sensitive and if not used within specified time and not kept under required temperature, expire. In most medical stores in villages such facilities are not available, and as a result, the use of expired vaccines become harmful for animals. There is a need for proper arrangement for storage of such medicines.
Market players: Input suppliers often exploit farmers for their own profit as they are the only source of necessary inputs for animals like Khal, Wanda fertiliser, fodder etc. Over 76 per cent of the farmers said that they borrow from input suppliers. These suppliers provide these inputs at a very high rate. These inputs, if available at low prices, can save farmers from the predatory behaviour of market players, enabling them to save and invest more in their livestock.
Almost 99 per cent of the farmers were of the view that if their problems are solved, livestock production can be enhanced significantly.
The following suggestions can help promote livestock production:
As most farmers are unable to feed their animals proper and balanced diet to acquire the required quantity of milk and meat due to lack of knowledge and finance, there is a need to provide them with simple techniques to prepare balanced and cheap fodder with the available materials in the village like molasses, bread crams, peals of vegetables and fruits, floor, wheat, rice and sugarcane..
Farmers should also be provided with short and intermediate easy-term credit through one window operation for investment in livestock. The existing cumbersome process of loan disbursement needs to be simplified.
Subsidy is normally given to farmers on inputs needed to boost output; such subsidies should also be given on animals and their fodder and farmers should be facilitated to buy animals in installments. Moreover, animals should be provided with insurance cover to minimise farmers’ losses.
Buffalos and cows are a major source of milk and meat. But goat and sheep can be more income-generating source which remains ignored.
There is a need to promote farming of these animals as they produce two to four offsprings twice a year, whereas cows and buffalo give birth mostly to a calf once a year. At present, there are 53.8 million goats and 26.5 million sheep. These can be doubled and even tripled in a single year by promoting goat and sheep farming.
At present 5.45 million tons of meat (beef, mutton, and poultry) and 84.39 million tons of milk is produced yearly. Through proper farming more animals can be produced and, meat production and milk output enhanced.