Animal husbandry needs Attention

What is the issue?

The pattern of global consumption is evolving towards higher share of animal products in diets focussing on the need for a proper and reliable  dairy and poultry ecosystem.

What is the status of dairy and poultry sector?

• India is the world’s largest producer of milk and third largest producer of egg.
• By 2022-23, milk production will expand to 235 million tonnes (from 198 mt in 2019-20) and egg production to 136 billion (from 114 billion in 2019-20).
• The protein meal demand is set to rise by 3 per cent per annum next 10 years.
• And by 2030, poultry meat will represent 41 per cent of all protein from meat sources.
• Consumers are attracted to poultry meat for lower price, product consistency and higher protein/lower fat content.
• In 2020, total milch cattle population was up by 10.5 per cent to 74.6 million in 2019.

What are the challenges in this sector?

• Disease outbreaks, sanitary restrictions and trade policies are the major challenges in the world meat market.
• Challenges in sourcing raw material for feed such as land constraint, water shortage, climate change, low crop yields, lack of tech infusion, policy constraint, etc adds to the issue.
• Maize  and protein meal (oilseed extractions) will constitute 60 per cent of total feed use by 2030, according to OECD-FAO  and the feed demand for maize is set to grow by 1.4 per cent per annum.
• Unreliability of feed supply, feed price volatility, demand fluctuation, policy environment, etc. are some of the issues.
• The biggest challenge to animal protein will come from the emerging plant protein segment.
• Livestock sector contributes around 54.6 % of total agricultural emissions in India adding to global warming.

 How to address these challenges?

• Feed intensification at the rate of 2.4 per cent is needed to meet the feed demand growth of the next 10 years.
• Animal feed market will have to be part of ‘Sustainable Animal Agriculture Ecosystem’.
• Contract farming can be promoted for assured availability and access to raw materials for feed market.
• Price stability can be provided by establishing backward linkages especially with FPOs (Farmer Producer Organizations).
• Hedging in commodity exchanges through the derivatives route and delivery based forward contracts can be explored for price risk management.

Hedging against investment risk means strategically using financial instruments or market strategies to offset the risk of any adverse price movements.

• Research is a priority to study the market and demand projection strategies can ensure higher yields per milch animal, promote animal health and nutrition,etc.
• Upgrading skills, setting up of adequate processing capacity and investment can attract foreign direct investment.

Source: The Hindu Businessline, PIB

Quick facts

20^th Livestock Census

• The Livestock census is conducted across the country periodically since 1919.
• It was released by Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying.
• The 20th Livestock Census was launched in 2018 to capture breed-wise number of animals and poultry birds.
• The total Livestock population is 535.78 million in the country showing an increase of 4.6% over Livestock Census 2012.