Small farmers having less than 2-3 hectares of land cannot depend solely on farming for income. They depend on labor supply from their household members, and other works too. Another option they have to increase their income is contract farming, but it is not possible for every small farmer to get the opportunity of contract farming.
Then comes the livestock sector for increasing the income. The livestock sector alone can provide alternative livelihood options to over 70 million small and marginal farmers.
We have resources, we have facilities but still, India’s agricultural exports are hardly $40 billion per year. We can boost our annual farm shipments and dairy shipments in the near future.
But all this requires a coordinated strategy and focus on our inherent competitive advantage. When talking about the milk and dairy sector, we are the world’s leading producer and also have the largest population of cows and buffalos. And this is a great opportunity for our farmers to rear animals for dairy products.
And not only this, the livestock sector is an important subsector of agriculture of the Indian Economy. If looking at the figures, animal husbandry provides livelihood support to two-third of rural households including small landowners, landless farmers, and marginal farmers.
India is the country that ranks first among the world’s milk producing Nations.
To develop the livestock sector, the government is encouraging farmers and also coming up with some schemes and programs for that. Some of the schemes are-
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National Dairy Development Programme
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Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme
Now the question comes that how Livestock farming can Help in Doubling the farmers’ income?
In our country, rural livestock farmers are not much aware of how they can increase the productivity (milk production) of their cattle. Overall milk production of the individual animal is very low in India in comparison to other countries. Various breeding programs, breeding methods like in-breeding, out-breeding, etc. can be used to increase productivity and may aid in doubling the farmers’ income. Providing sufficient and good quality fodder can also help in this.
Now the need is just to make farmers aware of all this so that they can double their income.
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Reference- https://www.ijcmas.com/
