Extension Policies for Livestock Development – Lessons from the Poultry

Industry in India

P.V. K. Sasidhar

School of Extension and Development Studies

Indira Gandhi National Open University

New Delhi-110068 ( www.ignou.ac.in)

Focus of the Session

Importance of livestock &

poultry sectors.

Livestock extension system

in India.

Change in role, approaches

and models of livestock

extension.

Limitations in livestock

extension & lessons from

poultry sector

Livestock Revolution

Globally, livestock production is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector.

By 2020, livestock will produce more than half of the total agricultural output - “Livestock Revolution”

Double the demand for, and production of livestock products in the

developing countries by 2020 due to : Human population growth

Increasing urbanization

Rising incomes

Availability

Quality

Access

Appropriate

Affordable

Livestock Extension Services will be crucial

to realize benefits of livestock revolution by

landless, small & marginal livestock farmers.

Livestock Vs. Poultry Sectors

Item Livestock Poultry GDP 4.11% & 25.6% to Ag GDP 1% & 11.70% to Livestock GDP

Growth Rates (%) 4.3 Layer :5.57 & Broiler: 11.44

Population

(2007 Vs.2012)

512.05 M (< 3.33%) (> 7.5 M milch

animal, 3.5 M animals-in-milk, 5 M

CB cows (34.78%), 2.6 M Graded

buffaloes (4.95%), CB sheep 1.37%,

CB pigs 2.8%)

729 M ( >12.39 %) ?

2530 M (156 M layers, 2339 M

broilers and 35 M breeding stock).

Crossbred :

Indigenous Cattle (20 : 80); Sheep (6: 94);

Pigs (24: 76) Buffaloes & Goat - ? 80:20 (Broilers more vibrant than

Layers)

Employment 22.45 M 6.0 M

Extension

Manpower

Requirement : 1: 5000 Cattle Units ( 102,000) Available : 43000 Gap : 59000 (4200 / yr)

1: 1 M Birds (6350)

2050

4300 (200 / yr )

Expanding & adapting qualitatively to emerging socio-economic,

environmental and technological forces with direct implications for

livestock extension policies and EAS

Livestock Extension System in India

1950s - Part of the NEP

Under the umbrella of Ag.Extension & Grossly neglected

Transferred to SDAH

Major Livestock Extension Organizations

1st level : DAHD, ICAR, NDDB, SLDB; SAUs/ SVUs/ ATMA & KVKs.

2nd level : SDAH.

3rd level : VLEWs under SDAH.

4th level : NGOs / VOs/ CSR.

Livestock Extension - Change in Roles, Approaches & Models

Change in Roles

Only public sector to public, private, and PPP - Pluralistic system.

Change in Approaches

Colonial: IVRI, NDRI, Madras Veterinary College etc.

Diverse Top-down: Commodity institutions and schemes under 5 year plans.

Unified Top-down: T&V during 1970s -80s

Diverse Bottom-up: Established in some parts & just begun in other places.

Change in Models

Tech. Transfer for Development (Persuasive + Paternalistic): Colonial / T &V.

Advisory Development Work (Persuasive + Participatory): NGOs.

HRD (Educational + Paternalistic): Universities / Research Institutes / SDAH

Facilitation for Development (Educational + Participatory): Operation Flood

Programme.

1. Inadequate & Less Effective Livestock Extension Services

Budget restrictions, growing fiscal deficits & insufficient operating funds.

Decline in the availability & quality of services.

Reduced disease surveillance, epidemic diseases control

& farm level preventive services.

Overall weakening of public livestock extension services.

Withdrawal from selected services

Contracting

Privatization

PPP

To recover full / part

of the costs.

Limitations in Livestock Extension & Lessons from Poultry Sector

Inadequate & Less Effective Livestock Extension Services (cont..)

With the participation of private sector,

commercial poultry EAS are reaching

to every individual commercial poultry

farmer in the country with efficiency &

effectiveness.

Example: Under contract poultry

farming, the integrators are the sole

source (100%) of free EAS. Company

extension staff visit the contract farms

to provide EAS, advice medications,

check the performance and record key

performance indicators like mortality,

FCR, body weight etc.

EAS to independent commercial

poultry farmers - on payment basis

from private poultry consultants.

2. Commodity Approach Instead of Farming Systems Approach

Livestock - Integral & interdependent in mixed farming. Livestock

extension focus should be on increasing the effective use of

different sub-systems by adopting a farming systems approach.

Poultry interdependence is limited - Most of the farm families have

livestock, but majority of poultry farmers are not practicing

agriculture.

Poultry farming is more practiced as primary or secondary

occupation in a business model with inputs from integrators or

market.

Only, the poultry manure is sold to farm families as source of

fertilizer.

3. High Input Oriented Research Outputs

Livestock EAS are also high input oriented, while „low

external input production systems‟ are there with

landless, marginal and small farmers.

Example: Crossbreeding and associate negative

consequences.

In contrast, the commercial poultry farming is ‘high

external input production system’ and EAS are also high

input oriented with higher returns on investment.

4. Inadequate Adaptive Research

The OFTs & FLDs to help in TAAR to fit in livestock

keeping by low external input production systems.

Example : All KVKs in 2013-14:

– Assessed - 2744 technologies

– Refined - 219 technologies

– FLDs - 114746

– Trainings - 55989

A considerable technological gap still lies between the technology

already developed & technology adopted by the livestock

farmers.

Mainly confined to crop

extension, neglecting

livestock extension.

4. Inadequate adaptive research ( cont..)

Poultry pure line breeding along with adaptive research in both

public & private sectors resulted in availability of superior layer

& broiler germplasm to every individual commercial poultry

farmer.

Parallel development of other poultry input sub-sectors like

feed mill, hatchery & farm appliances, poultry biologicals, feed

analytical & disease diagnostic labs, modern mechanized

poultry and egg processing plants helped in transformation of

a backyard poultry sector into a successful commercial poultry

business.

5. Collaboration – Missing Link in Effective Livestock EAS

Every state in India has organizations to support

livestock EAS.

Inability of the organizations to collaborate with each

other in the form of weak linkages between research –

education- extension - development organizations.

In commercial poultry sector, the collaboration between

EAS & all input & support service providers is much

higher than in livestock sector.

6. Lack of institutional shift from livestock extension to livestock entrepreneurship

Example: Conventional dairy extension (improving production in

terms of unit cost involved in feeding, breeding & management)

vis-à-vis

Commercial dairy extension (marketing, value addition, project

formulation, licensing, pollution control, budgeting, loans, insurance,

mechanization, etc.).

With shift in entrepreneurship, poultry farmers are raising

volume of production to make reasonable profits due to

elimination of several market middlemen.

Example : Production cost reduced under integration, even though

price of inputs increased:

– Consumer gets chicken at affordable prices

– Farmer gets regular income

– Company is happy about higher volume, higher productivity & employment

for rural and urban youth.

7. Focus on curative services than preventive and education services

In livestock extension services, the main emphasis has been on

diagnostic & curative services rather than preventive health &

education.

Example: 5.1% of the households could access animal

husbandry information, corresponding figure for agricultural

sector was 40.5% indicating gross negligence of livestock

extension education activities in the country (NSSO Survey).

In contrast, in commercial poultry farming, equal emphasis has

been given on curative, diagnostic, preventive, production, EAS

and parallel development of other poultry input sub-sectors.

8. Inadequate policy support

Lack of enabling policy

environment and institutional

arrangements that would facilitate

TKPs delivery, uptake and

application due to :

Limited awareness of relevant

TKPs among the policy makers.

Limited influence / interest of

researchers / extension workers

on policy making.

Inadequate policy support ( cont..)

There is no law / policy to regulate

commercial / contract poultry

farming.

Example : All privileges and rights are in the

hands of contract companies – specifications

on outputs to be achieved by farmers like

FCR, mortality, body weight, production cost

etc .

Contracts do not mention the specifications

on inputs to be delivered by contract

companies viz., day old chick body weight,

feed quality (starter, grower and finisher with

TDN / DCP and other nutrients), quality of

medicines and vaccines, qualifications of

extension service providers etc (all these are

directly proportionate to body weight of the

bird at liquidation).

9. Bias in livestock extension service

– Top-down „transfer of technology‟ approach.

– Focus mostly on cattle & buffaloes, almost

to complete exclusion of other species.

– Focus primarily on milk production,

neglecting other roles of livestock.

– Services are usually concentrated in high

potential areas.

– Generally provided by men for men, despite

key roles that women play in livestock

farming.

In contrast, in commercial poultry farming, such

biases are not very common.

But R&D focus has been on commercial chicken

(layer and broiler) with not much emphasis on

backyard poultry and other diversified poultry

species viz., quail, turkey, guinea fowl, emu and

duck.

10. Inadequate capacity of livestock extension functionaries on emerging challenges

Capacities of both livestock & poultry extension functionaries

are inadequate to handle emerging challenges with a pro-poor

approach.

Example 1 : Livestock role in global warming & its mitigation

18 % GHG emissions are attributable to livestock & poultry. But

globally for 1.2 billion people, livestock & poultry are a primary

source of food contributing for their nutritional & livelihood security.

Small-scale livestock keepers need technological & EAS to produce

the greater amounts of milk, meat and eggs more efficiently with

less environmental cost.

Example 2 : Animal Welfare

There are only 2 credits on animal welfare (1.13 % out of 177 total

credits) in the entire BVSc degree programme - leading to inability of

livestock extension functionaries to understand the welfare issues

and related consequences.

Conclusion

Livestock extension focus should be on effective use of

technology, EAS, functionaries & organizations as education

and entrepreneurial means in such ways that livestock farmers

help themselves to attain development. Livestock extension

workers have to build this capacity, rather than evading such a

challenge.

By accepting this challenge, backyard poultry farming has

transformed into a successful commercial poultry business in

just 3 decades.

Public livestock extension services are inevitable in view of the

social welfare obligations and interests of the millions of small &

landless livestock keepers.

Private sector‟s participation is equally important in view of

economic, operational and efficiency reasons.

Conclusion ( cont..)

Under private funding & private delivery model, EAS are being

successfully delivered to 6 M commercial poultry farmers with

backward & forward linkages. Livestock extension need to

identify & prioritize such services for private funding & private

delivery.

Curative Livestock Extension Services ( Except the services

with externalities) : To be transferred to Private Sector .

Preventive Livestock Extension Services : To be continued

under Public Sector / under PPP mode.

Production Livestock Extension Services: To be transferred to

Private Sector / under PPP mode.

Successful Initiatives

Public- NGO - Private –Partnership : In association with 12 State

Governments (in 67000 villages), BAIF involved in livestock

extension services in collaboration with Intervet India Pvt. Ltd. (

Providing diagnostic, preventive ,curative and productive livestock

extension services ).

J.K. Trust Gram Yojana ( Raymonds) : Operating 723 Integrated

Livestock Development (ILD) Centres in 33 Districts of Chhattisgarh,

Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh with a coverage

of 7000 villages ( Major emphasis on productive livestock

extension services).