Status of Livestock Industry of IndiaHome

The major foods of animal origin in India are milk, eggs, chicken, goat meat and fish. Due to religious and social constrains most Indians do not eat beef and pork and hence beef and pork industries have a limited share in the market. As far as feed is concerned poultry, cattle and aqua feeds have been developed in an organized way.


Poultry Industry
Poultry in India started as a backyard activity and in the past three decades it has gone through a revolutionary change. From a backyard activity it has got transformed into well-organized, scientifically oriented and technologically driven industry. Today India ranks 4th in egg production and 8th in broiler production in the world. Statistics of 2002 show that India produced 40 billion eggs and 1.2 billion kgs of broiler meat per annum which gave an annual per capita consumption of 40 eggs and 1.2 kg broiler meat when compared to 500 gms in 1990. Even though there is a substantial rise in consumption it is still far below compared to standards in developed countries. India’s poultry industry is growing at a rate of 13 %, which is one of the fastest growing industry in the world in comparison to China, which is at 10 %, Brazil 8%, USA 2 % and European Union 2%. In the coming years due to urbanization and rising income the affordability of chicken meat and eggs would increase leading to a greater demand for poultry products. The productive efficiency levels of the Indian poultry industry are comparable to the world standards. Today the main breeds in India the BV-300 and Hyline give a hen-housed production of 310 – 320 eggs in 52 weeks and the Cobb, Hubbard and Ross breeds in broilers have a food conversion ratio (FCR) of 1.8 for attaining a body weight of 2 kgs. in 40 days. In 1991 poultry accounted for 16 % of the total animal protein consumption, in 2000 it has accounted for 36 % of the total animal protein consumption and this is on the rise due to decreasing ruminant livestock species.

Cattle Industry
India has one of the largest populations of cattle in the world and ranks number one in milk production. The country produces about 80 million tons of milk per annum with an annual per capita consumption of 240 g/day. The dairy industry is spread across the whole country and it is growing at an annual growth rate of 5 %. Milk is from cows or buffaloes and the buffalo breeds produce milk with a fat content of 7 to 8% compared to cow’s milk, which has a fat content of 4 %. Most of the feed comes from grazing although a small portion of concentrate feed containing various feed additives for enhancing milk production is being given to cattle. Most of the feed manufacturers in India make both poultry as well as cattle feed. The demand for usage of cattle feed will grow if the feed is economically viable. The challenge is to make a nutritionally competent feed using low-grade fibrous crop residues, which are mainly byproducts from other industries along with feed additives. Cattle feeding practices are very traditional. Farmers choose their own ingredients and prepare their own formulations. The productivity of cattle is very low because of poor genetic makeup and so there is a limitation of using high quality feed. About 10% of the cattle herd is of the cross bred varieties but this is slowly increasing and more and more crossbred population of either Jersey or Holstein-Friesian are coming into existence. In the coming years pure bred varieties also could increase.

Aqua Industry
Indian fisheries have made notable strides during the past five decades. In 2002 India produced 6.1 million tons of fish and shellfish from captive fisheries and aqua culture. It ranks 2nd in aqua culture and 3rd in captive fisheries in Asia. During this period fish production has registered over eight-fold increase from 0.75 million tons in 1950. Although captive fishery production both in marine and freshwater sector is being increasingly plateaued the aqua culture growth rate is about 9 % of which 95 % is fresh water aqua culture. Indian aqua culture industry is highly dependent on exports. World demand exceeds production and the per capita consumption is steadily increasing. This means that India has great scope in expanding further its aqua culture industry. There has been a tremendous improvement in the productivity levels of aquaculture ponds from 600 – 800 kg/ha/yr in 1960 to more than 2000 kg/ha/yr in the year 2002. Although there has been an improvement in the understanding of the production methods further modernization of aquaculture would need greater understanding of nutritional requirements, digestive system, growth factors and reproductive physiology. Due to the rapid growth and expansion the industry could face constrain like insufficient availability of natural food, limitation on brood stock availability, quality seed production, loss due to deficiency and disease and environmental concerns. Aqua industry works on the principle of high risk high benefits and the challenge in the coming years would be to make it low risk high benefits and highly sustainable.

Source: http://www.fao.org/