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LIVESTOCK IN
RAINFED AREAS
Small is not
beautiful?
Livestock is quite often equated with
milch animals! Goats, sheep, draft animals, poultry, pigs etc., the
life line of livelihoods in rainfed areas are never given due
importance. How these production systems can be integrated
legitimately into the land-use systems? What support systems need to
be established to incre ase their access to services?
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The issues of pastoralists depending on
commons and private pastures across regions need special attention.
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Evolving an appropriate policy for
provision of usufruct rights over commons to communities and
investing on regeneration of common lands should be a priority.
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Extension of water intensive dairying
into rainfed areas imposes severe stress on the natural resources.
Can dairy production be reoriented towards less water intensive and
farm-integrated systems?
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Seasonal and drought period fodder
deficits need innovative institutional mechanisms of community
managed fodder security systems.
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Better fodder/ feed techniques and
required infrastructure/ service facilities like biomass chaffing
needs to be established with public support.
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Lack of draft bullock power imposes a
serious limitation on marginal farmers - a constraint that
mechanization may not be able to solve. Subsidized systems of
maintaining required draft power as a support for poor farmers needs
to be evolved.
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Backyard poultry has potential for
supplementary incomes but never got due attention
Can public support be extended to
provisioning of fodder-plots with assured irrigation and established
fodder plantation for the poor?
Technological options for fisheries in
seasonal tanks need to be mainstreamed. Necessary
service/infrastructure facilities in terms of availability of
seedlings, nets, shaping up of tank beds etc., need to be established.
The use-rights on the tanks, institutional arrangements and conflict
resolution mechanisms are other important areas for local policy
support.
These and several more….
Livestock-livelihood systems in rainfed areas are distinct and need
special support mechanisms and incentives to make them ecologically
sustainable. They have greater promise for poverty reduction and for
agriculture sectoral growth.
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