LIVESTOCK DEVELOPMENT

Livestock is integrated part of rural livelihood systems in India particularly for small and marginal farmers. Livestock plays very critical role in risk mitigation in addition to income source for rural people. In the regions where adequate land and water resources are available dairy has emerged as important income source for the farmers. Goat rearing and poultry are less input intensive hence suitable for farmers having low resource base. Over the period of time AKRSP(I) has worked with all three sector; goat rearing, dairy and poultry.

  • Livestock Development
  • Livestock Development
  • Livestock Development
  • Livestock Development
  • Livestock Development
  • Livestock Development

Goat Rearing

Goat rearing is practiced at large scale in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. Generally most marginalized communities are engaged in this activity. AKRSP(I)'s goat rearing program has several key interventions leading to quantum jump in productivity and income levels.

Key elements of goat rearing program

  • Women into Goat Rearing Groups (GRGs) to create platform for extension of best practices and collective action.
  • Creating a cadre of women extension workers called pashusakhis to provide preventive health services for goats. PashuSakhi's services include deworming, vaccinations and knowledge extension. PashuSakhis charge for their services from the goat rearers to ensure the viability of their services.
  • Capacity building and knowledge extension is largely around housing, preventive healthcare, breeding, feeding and financial services
  • Facilitation of government schemes including vaccination drives and health camps in villages.
  • Future plan also includes marketing of goats through producer's organizations to ensure better prices for farmers.

Outcomes of Goat Rearing Program

  • Our goat rearing program currently reaches more than 15000 goat rearing households
  • Within a year, mortality rates are decreased drastically to around 6% from prevailing 20% to 30% mortality rates in villages. This leads to direct impact on income levels.
  • The ajority of the PashuSakhis are able to generate additional income in the range of Rs.500 to Rs.2000 per month from their services.
  • Mobilization efforts by PashuSakhis have helped in effective implementation of vaccination drives run by the government.
  • Production of feed block at the local level is emerging as a good micro-enterprise activity for women's groups.

Poultry

Members of women Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in Madhya Pradesh have taken up poultry as an income generating activity. Tribal households are involved in poultry on a large scale. In Madhya Pradesh AKRSP(I) is working on both the models of poultry; improving existing backyard poultry and promoting commercial poultry as micro-enterprise.

Essential elements of our intervention

  • Making provisions for vaccinations in poultry birds through PashuSakhis
  • Promoting low cost shelters
  • Improvement in feeding practices
  • Linkages for chicks procurement
  • Market linkages with traders for purchase of full grown birds
  • Facilitating women to get credit services from their SHGs and banks
  • Facilitating government schemes around backyard poultry

In addition to this, one pilot project is underway to develop a remunerable model for rearing of the indigenous poultry bird, Kadaknath.

Outcomes from Poultry Intervention

Our poultry program reach to over 1500 farmers mostly from tribal communities

  • Households which adopted a micro-enterprise model of poultry are earning income in the range of Rs.30000 to Rs.60000 per annum
  • Mortality rates in poultry have been drastically reduced with vaccination and other practices
  • Activitiesare largely adopted and run by women, which leads to economic empowerment of women
  • Most of the backward linkages, like chick and feed purchases, are done by farmer's producers companies, hence these companies are able to generate sustainable business

Dairy

Dairy emerged as a very important livelihood activity, especially in areas where irrigation areas has increased due to the constant efforts of government and other development agencies. Tribal regions and the Saurashtra region in Gujarat benefitted the most from this.

Our dairy program has benefitted over 5200 farmers, mostly in Gujarat.