The Centre’s discussions on boosting the goat sector to double farmers’ incomes may be futile if fodder and grazing lands, both diminishing, are not ensured
Since goats were domesticated 10,000 years ago, they have been poor people’s most reliable livelihood insurance. In India, goats are the most reliable source of earning a living in ecologically degraded areas. The reason: a goat has everything a poor or a person in emergency needs: low investment, high and consistent returns and near liquid monetary status.
Apart from the fact that goats can survive in harsh environments, what adds to the profitability of rearing goats is that they are also prolific breeders and have a good survival rate in drought-prone areas. They are able to conceive and breed twice a year. Most of the time they give birth to twins, sometimes to triplets or quadruplets. This is why farmers, especially small and marginal in ecologically fragile areas, shift from agriculture and cattle rearing to goat rearing.
In a two-day conference, starting today, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is partnering with the Centre, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Agri-solutions, to discuss how the goat sector can be improved in rural areas, specifically in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. International technical experts and national policy makers will discuss how building a vibrant goat sector in India is critical to reducing poverty, meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aim to double farmers’ income by 2022.
Raising goats is an income-generating activity that has enormous potential to increase incomes and improve nutrition for resource poor households, especially in remote, tribal and ecologically vulnerable areas. Giyasilal Saini, a poor farmer in semi-arid Alwar, Rajasthan was struggling to feed his family as a pond that irrigated his field dried up. Until, he started following the example of farmers from Jaitpura village who shifted to goat-rearing, and in three years Saini’s herd grew from 20 to 80-strong.
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