Livestock production in India -Prospects and Challenges

 

Changing paradigm shift towards food processing in Agriculture

Dr.T.P. Sethumadhavan

Agriculture including livestock and poultry are the backbone of rural economy in India. Basic challenges include whether we are able to link Indian farmers with markets around the World? How to convert Covid 19 impact to explore the opportunities? During the post Covid 19 phase, Central and State Governments started seriously pursuing the options for sustainable agriculture as part of addressing the food security challenges. Sustainable agriculture must address the social, economic and environmental issues.   It requires adequate planning including SWOT analysis of the existing system. There should be clear statistics on available production and requirement. Supply demand model will facilitate to assess the existing gap of agriculture commodities including the inflow from nearby states and import. It can be implemented on a mission mode and the resources required for the project must be identified. It includes land, supply demand mismatch, marketing prospects, etc. Only location specific agriculture can be pursued for sustainable results. Perishability is one of the important issues affecting agriculture and allied products including milk, meat and eggs.

Sustainable agriculture and market centered approach

The objective of promoting sustainable agriculture must be to reduce the reliance of nearby States for meeting the increasing demand. Networking of the producers with the market must be strengthened.  Organized sector can cater only less than 15 percent demand of the agricultural commodities in the country. With regard to milk, it is nearly 29 percent. Networking of producers through producer consumer interface will facilitate to get better margin for the produce, which in turn can reduce the entry of middle men in to the system who are getting more than 65 percent of the profit. This is more pronounced in the marketing of vegetables and fruits. Very often farmers and entrepreneurs used to sell the products at less than the breakeven prices. Recent statistics reveal that only 30 percent agricultural activities are profitable. 35 percent is breakeven and rest 35 percent are running under loss; according to Confederation of Indian Industry studies.  

Strategies for sustainability in agriculture must include location specificity of crops, skilled man power resources, market centered approach in extension and production. Farmers and entrepreneurs must be given access to latest technologies to increase production, productivity and processing. Latest marketing techniques including e commerce and branding need to be popularized. It must address food safety issues including traceability, safe to eat production practices, branding and the measures to increase the shelf life of the products through implementing cold chain facilities. Agriculture, animal husbandry, dairying, poultry production and fisheries sector need to be integrated for achieving sustainability in agriculture.

Recently the trend is more towards organic farming. But majority of the organic products available in the market are not meeting the required level of quality standards. Recent findings of Kerala Agriculture University reveal that some of the vegetables and fruits available in the market contain more than permissible level of pesticide residues. Moreover the antibiotic residue level among animal protein sources like milk, meat and egg are on an increasing trend. It is the need of the hour to reduce the level of pesticides and antibiotics to curtail ever increasing incidences of lifestyle diseases including cancer.

Technologies for precision farming, productivity enhancement and value addition requires appropriate support from research institutions. Quality of inputs needs to be ascertained. Farmer groups, neighbourhood groups, residential associations, kudumbasree groups including students and teachers must be encouraged to involve in agriculture production practices.

As far as Kerala is concerned, the State is moving towards sustainability in production towards milk and broiler chicken. At the same time market pressure from nearby states affect chicken prices in certain seasons up to 3-6 months per year.  Scientific slaughter houses with cold chain facilities, network marketing, promotion of fodder cultivation, etc will facilitate to improve sustainability in agriculture. Moreover Krishi Bhavans, Veterinary Dispensaries, Dairy and fisheries extension offices must act as innovation and entrepreneurship promotion centres to transfer appropriate technologies and knowledge among farming community and entrepreneurs.

At a time agriculture is moving towards agribusiness in the country lot of educated youths are interested to venture in to agriculture through establishing start-ups. They work strategically based on prospective stakeholders and consumers. There are umpteen numbers of start-ups involved in agriculture in the country who facilitate to augment marketing through mobile apps and e commerce platforms. They are using unique USP models including home delivery platforms.

Opportunities in Agri entrepreneurship

Covid 19 has created new opportunities for entrepreneurs in agriculture and allied sectors. Lot of educated youth started venturing in to this sector with technology enabled marketing platforms in the State. At a time when agriculture is moving towards agribusiness, food processing sector with ready to eat and ready to cook segments are acquiring momentum across the country. MSME sector which has been badly affected by Covid crisis is trying to promote agribusiness and agri industrial sector in the country.  Appropriate market linkage is necessary for making the agriculture operations viable and sustainable. Moreover it requires good agricultural practices, technology and micro irrigation methods.

Agri innovation, Entrepreneurship and technology need to be promoted so as to improve production and productivity during post Covid phase. Precision farming methods will pave way for optimizing cost of production and productivity. Post Covid phase will witness substantial changes in way of life, market, emergence of disruption technologies and consumer reference. New age innovations, agriculture sector skills and technology will position the sector on par with the global standards. Consumer preference towards organic and natural products will increase during the coming years. There are immense opportunities for establishing start-ups in agriculture for transforming educated youth to select agriculture as a white collar job. Productivity enhancement programmes coupled with appropriate value addition will create lot of opportunities. Basically Kerala is selling raw agriculture produce like jack fruit, rubber, banana, tapioca, spices, etc to nearby states or countries. This fetches huge profit margin to the buyers through appropriate value addition of products in tune with the demand in the international market.

Production of animal protein sources like milk, egg, meat and meat products emerge as potential measures to address food security and protein malnutrition. Policies and programmes related to this sector will be one of the thrust areas in the post Covid phase. Lot of entrepreneurship opportunities exist in this sector.

Opportunities in livestock & Poultry sector

                    20 million families are involved in livestock and poultry sector with women involvement is around 70 percent. It contributes 6 percent of the gross National GDP and 25 percent of agriculture GDP of the country. India has 56 percent buffaloes, 12 percent cattle and 22 percent small ruminants. India is the largest milk producing country in the world over the last decade and ranks third in egg production and 5^th in broiler chicken production. Demand for animal protein sources like milk, meat, egg and their products are on an increasing trend. Livestock and poultry exhibits annual growth rate of 8.2 percent per annum where as growth in agriculture is only 1.4 percent. Annual growth rate in dairying is 14 percent in the country and productivity increase in cattle and buffaloe is 13 percent. Per capita consumption of animal protein sources are on the rise. Private and public sector investments in livestock and poultry sectors gradually started increasing in the country. Growth pillars of livestock and poultry sector include disease status, nutrient availability, breed improvement, processing, marketing and quality of products. Urgent measures are required to reduce the cost of production through quality feeds and fodder. Poor nutrition of cattle will affect productivity by 30-40 percent. Breed improvement measures required not only for cattle and buffaloes but for sheep, goats and pigs as well. Lot of initiatives are taking place in this sector. Production strategy need to be market centered and based on the market demand appropriate value addition methods are required. Animal healthcare requires efficient Veterinary services, diagnostic labs, infrastructure facilities, geographic mapping and technologies.

Commercial dairying requires advanced technologies

Temperate countries like Israel’s success in dairy farming is due to advanced technologies, measures for economic efficiency, environment friendly management, efficiency in operations and animal welfare measures. Proper body cooling of animals with precision technologies can facilitate higher productivity from Dairy cattle. Israel could increase the productivity and achieve 90 percent sustainability in milk and meat production even though Israel had only 1.2 lakh dairy cattle and one lakh beef cattle.

Poultry sector exhibit quantum jump in production

Poultry sector including egg and broiler chicken production exhibits an annual growth rate of 8-10 percent. This sector contributes to 0.5 percent of Nation’s GDP and 10 percent of GDP from livestock sector. 10 lakh families are involved in rearing 850 million poultry. Indian poultry sector worth 1.3 lakh Crores; of which market share of broilers and layers are 85000 Crores and 45000 Crores respectively. Per capita consumption of broiler chicken and eggs per annum in India is 3.4 Kg and 80 eggs respectively.  

Focus on entrepreneurship, FPOs and startups

Lots of entrepreneurs are interested to establish livestock farming ventures. Sustainable dairy farming requires dairy farm management, use of best practices, best nutrients, effective utilization of resources, bio security measures and health and safety of animals. Hoof care, lameness and animal welfare requires more attention. Early age at puberty, first calving and reduced inter calving period are ways to make dairying a viable enterprise. Govt. of India’s new farmer producer organization guidelines includes Kissan credit card and agri. infrastructure fund as part of Covid 19 ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’ will facilitate umpteen opportunities for livestock sector farmers, entrepreneurs and FPOs.

The trend in agriculture is more towards agri. business. This paradigm shift is prevalent in livestock and poultry sector also. More number of professionals and educated youth are interested to venture in to livestock business through entrepreneurship programmes or through establishing startups. Livestock ventures can be made viable only through market centred value addition. It requires food safety norms, detection of traceability, etc.  Recent studies by CII reveals that by 2022, Of the retail market, 70 percent will be food retail. There lies a huge opportunity for ready to eat and ready to cook food products.

Challenges in livestock sector

Major challenges affecting livestock and poultry sector include decreasing productivity, climatic variations, natural disasters, constraints in increasing the genetic potential of cattle and poor extension programmes. Scientific farming requires precision farming techniques and appropriate technologies, but accesses to technologies are limited in rural areas. At a time when artificial intelligence and automation are emerging in different farming operations, it is the need of the hour to ensure access of these technologies to farmers and entrepreneurs through appropriate extension programmes. Demand supply mismatch and disruptions in supply chain have to be addressed through productivity enhancement programmes and sustainable technologies. Climate resilient fodder varieties have to be promoted on a large scale and the concept of farmer rations have to be validated based on the research findings of National dairy Development board and National Dairy Research Institute.  New job roles are emerging in livestock sector based on innovations which requires appropriate skill development programmes. National Skill Development Corporation is offering stakeholder based skilling programmes at different National Skill Qualification Framework levels.

Emerging opportunities in food processing

MSME sector requires more linkages with livestock and poultry processing sector. Traceability, antibiotic residues and heavy metal contamination along with poor microbiological standards affect the export of livestock products. Precision farming methods based on agro ecological zones are necessary; fodder cultivation must be based on soil fertility, irrigation and soil health cards. Area specific mineral mixtures need to be promoted on a large scale to reduce nutritional deficiencies. India has increasing incidences of protein malnutrition. It can be corrected easily through augmenting production of animal protein sources. An adult individual requires one gram of protein per Kg of body weight.

Thirty percent of middle class Indians have growing disposable income which would grow to 50 percent during the next five years. Their expenditure on food would double during the next six years which would facilitate huge opportunities for livestock processing sector.  Ministry of food processing is offering cold chain projects in livestock and agriculture sector to promote value addition and marketing. Online market is expected to reach 530 million by 2025 and e commerce market will show quantum jump in the coming years. Consumer tastes and preferences are changing. Huge opportunities exist for fermented dairy products, probiotics, therapeutic diets and nutraceuticals in the market. Fiscal incentives like GST and regulatory norms like Food safety and standards act along with mega food parks and infrastructure support will facilitate to make substantial changes in the food processing ecosystem in the country.

(Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan, Project Director-Deputy Director, Dept of Animal Husbandry, Govt of Kerala, Former Director of Entrepreneurship, Kerala Veterinary & Animal Sciences University, Director, ULCCS Education & Consultant to World Bank on Sustainable agriculture. E mail- tpsethu2000@gmail.com)