CLIMATE-RESILIENT LIVESTOCK MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION
1. Our livestock systems are deeply interwoven with the environment, making them both vulnerable to and responsible for climate change. Climate extremities are leading to considerable hardships to small, marginal farmers, due to decreased productivity and increased mortality of animals. On the other hand, Climate Change situation is made worse through GHG (Greenhouse Gases) like methane emissions from livestock, primarily from bovine animals. With increasing global population, the demand of livestock products including milk, meat and value-added products is only going to increase, to be managed in an extreme climate with decreased availability of land, water and other resources. Hence, there is a need for Livestock Sector to find a balance to address challenges of Food Security, Livelihoods, and Sustainable Environment.

2. India being the largest cattle provider in the world, needs to act fast to manage the Climate Change challenges effectively. There is a need for adopting climate-resilient and highly productive animal breed selection, while controlling the production of low productive animals through policy mechanisms, awareness and proper resource allocation. With better breeding techniques, health/veterinary services, fodder management, food/farm waste re-purposing, appropriate shelters, we can address multi-sectoral challenges of nutritional security, sustainable job creation, and GHG (Methane) emissions reduction, posed by Climate Change effectively.

3. Surya Foundation Think Tank, comprising a panel of experts deliberated on various aspects related to the above issues. The suggestions and recommendations, by the Think Tank are given in the succeeding paras.

OBSERVATIONS & CHALLENGES
4. Policy Focus - Shift from Small Livestock Holdings - Animal keeping being a 24x7 job is no longer preferred at rural homes, as the family sizes are getting smaller and youth getting more aspirational and mobile. So, shift from small number of animals holdings at home (mainly for self/family consumption), to large commercial animal farms for wider community/city reach, is the long-term trend and the right approach for livestock farming. This would also ensure climate-friendly and proper care of the livestock along with scale needed for making the farm profitable.

5. More output per Animal - India already has the world’s largest livestock numbers, though our contribution to enteric GHG (methane) emissions is still much lesser compared to beef dependent western world, but it is still sizable and growing. There is need for more produce per animal to ensure that human nutrition needs are met with fewer highly productive, efficient and resilient animals.

6. Policy Segregation of Meat or Milk Animals in same species– We tend to club both milk and meat animals (e.g. - goats reared for meat and those for milk), together when formulating policies on breeding, productivity, nutrition, disease management, despite drastic differences in challenges and characteristics of both sets of animals. Policy level changes to “separate” incentives and priorities for both Milk and Meat animals, to help direct the efforts for increasing the productivity and resilience in right direction.

7. Applied Research & Development – India needs to increase the R&D spending for Livestock Sector’s growth. Even within the existing budgets, there is a need for thorough research through better grassroot data collection and analysis for effective decision-making for livestock sector. Research also needs to be more applied/outcome-oriented, for it to be relevant to the end consumer, mainly small and marginal farmers.

CLIMATE CHANGE – ADAPTATIONS & MITIGATIONS FOR LIVESTOCK FARMING 8. With over 70% of Indian rural households relying on livestock for their livelihoods, ensuring latter’s resilience to climate change is essential for poverty alleviation and food security. Adapting to climate change through better breeds, feeds, trainings, health services, and recognition of wide diversity of climate-resilient animals including non-bovines would be critical. We also need to reduce our emissions and waste, to mitigate livestock impact on environment, and generate livelihoods in the process. It would require a Comprehensive Strategy with all measures as listed above to work in unison to address the complex challenge as Climate Change.

ADAPTATION STRATEGIESM
9. Despite rapid development of technology and innovations for livestock sector in climate-resilience building, breed improvement, disease control, fodder management, better shelters, the biggest impediment to the progress in livestock sector in India remains the lack of awareness, and outreach to majority of small, marginal and landless farmers, and pastoralists. Ironically, the pastoralists who produce the original organic livestock products are the most vulnerable to vagaries of the climate change. As per the data on ICAR extension website, the official reach of its all its extension programs including agriculture, is not even 1 million farmer households, while the farmer households are almost 100 times (NSSO survey 2019) that, reflecting the scale and challenge before us. In a diverse and large country as India, government institutes can’t be realistically expected to reach to every corner / village with their limited resource. It is thus pertinent to develop local village capacity, extensive use of digital technology, social media for information dissemination, along with sustained engagement of local non-governmental agencies including NGOs, Entrepreneurs, Community Organizations (FPOs) etc., for better response to climate challenges before us.

Note: Use of term “underserved” region in the recommendations below, refers to deficient areas / states of India lacking livestock services. (based on 2019 livestock survey, and Parliament Question in 2022 on veterinary doctors).

Expected Outcomes
• Increased Awareness and Outreach to small, marginal, landless livestock owners and pastoralists, about breed management, better nutrition, improved health and value addition.
• Availability, Accessibility and Continuous Engagement of Veterinary Staff for provision of Breed Improvement, Livestock Nutrition, Shelter, and Disease-Control information to farmers.
• Empowerment of rural/tribal communities to manage livestock issues locally, especially nutrition, monitoring and emergency care.
• Increment in number of, as well as regular Capacity Building of Animal Care professionals (vets, paravets, AHWs etc) through formalized systematic CVE (Continuing Veterinary Education) in latest technologies, innovations, for better management of climate change induced challenges on ground for livestock farmers.
• Improvement in Veterinary Infrastructure, including existing hospitals, care centres, clinics, dispensaries as per the government guidelines.

Proposed Mechanisms
Encourage Community, Civil Society (NGO), and Private Participation 10. Promotion of, and Skilling in Veterinary Roles for Youths in Underserved areas – To encourage unemployed rural youths in underserved areas, into Veterinary Roles like Community Animal Health Worker, Livestock Service Provider, Community Resource Person (Veterinary), Artificial Insemination (AI) and Embryo Transfer Technology (ETT), and skill training providers to provide training in these, incentives to be provided as follows,

(a) Program to begin with a yearly target of 1,00,000 youths trained and ready for deployment in underserved areas, in partnership with ASCI council in 1st year. The program to be expanded over following 4 years to provide full coverage of 4.5 lakhs youths needed for livestock coverage.

(b) Each qualified skilled youth to be provided fixed stipend, under the guidance of veterinary doctor as internship for 1 year, subject to coverage of villages and livestock.

(c) Each skill training provider to be provided monetary incentive per trainee, who successfully completes one year of internship. The level of incentive could be graded depending upon the underserved livestock requirements in the respective region.

(d) For better results, skill providers to work with government veterinary doctors to take up capacity building activities. Veterinary doctors also to be involved in the Assessment of candidates to ensure proper selection.

11. Empanel Local NGOs for Entrepreneurship & Business Development Training – For providing last-mile access to remote livestock dependent communities, FPOs and other community organizations, empaneling local NGOs interested in working with the government institutes to conduct regular awareness programs, trainings, and develop master trainers, would help.

a) These NGOs would also help in providing Entrepreneurship and Business Development information and connecting people with government schemes. Each NGO to be empaneled and remunerated based on the activities which it would support, like awareness workshop, skill training, digital/financial literacy, entrepreneurship training, or other extension activities as deemed fit by the local government.

(b) Hub & Spoke Model for dissemination of information, trainings can be developed with help of FPOs by having a Technical Head at the NGO acting as the Hub, who would be responsible to train and share info with respective representatives from FPOs, which would be Spokes, and who would then pass the same to other members.

12. Grassroot Entrepreneurs (Pashu Sakhis) - Pashu Sakhi model which was developed initially for goats in Jharkhand, needs to be scaled up to include other ruminants like sheep, camels, cattle, buffalo and other species, as per the local needs across country. It would provide a viable employment opportunity for local rural women and provide required assistance to the livestock farmer. This needs to be prioritized in policy on the lines of ASHA worker for it to be effective. Presently, there are only 15,000 Pashu Sakhis mainly in Jharkhand, so there is huge scope across the country. It is proposed to have 1 Pashu Sakhi per 1000 livestock, so for 450 million ruminants (as per 20th Livestock Census 2019), hence around 4.5 lakhs Pashu Sakhis are needed. This represents a huge gap as well as a great opportunity to create good jobs leading to overall rural prosperity. World bank supported JOHAR model is already giving great dividends and can be adapted for the same. (https://www. worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2022/12/13/jharkhand-s-pashu-sakhisthe-community-animal-healthcare-workers).

13. CSR Funds for Livestock Promotion – On the lines of promoting Covid contributions through CSR during the 2020-22 period, similar scheme to promote CSR contributions towards provision of last-mile access to Livestock health, nutrition, awareness programs, should be made a priority and recommended to all corporate, Public PSUs and HNIs. Proposal to target at least 20% of CSR by Public PSUs, Corporates to be allocated for funding CSR activities for livestock extension.

14. Revitalizing Veterinary Education and Skilling Ecosystem (a) New / Upgraded Veterinary Colleges – Private players to be provided incentives in terms of land, utilities and R&D support from nearby government institutes to setup new veterinary colleges. An outlay of Rs.100 crores to support setting up of 10 new veterinary colleges (Rs.10 crores each) with capacity of teaching 100 vets and 400 paravets each year in identified areas, would help kick-start the process.

(b) Formalization of Systematic Continuing Veterinary Education (CVE) – With the upcoming climate challenges, resulting in umpteen number of zoonotic diseases, it is paramount to regularly review and upgrade the knowledge of our existing veterinary staff with information on latest innovations, vaccinations, treatments, nutrition, and other means to manage the new challenges for livestock farming. Propose to formalize systematic CVE for veterinarians & paravets, on the latest updates in Vet science for dissemination.

(c) Review and Evaluation of Veterinary Education and Requirements - In addition, a comprehensive performance audit with the focus on quality of veterinary education being imparted needs to be conducted. A comprehensive evaluation of existing veterinary institutions is the urgent need to assess the realistic requirements of veterinary professionals for delivery of effective and quality veterinary services. This assessment should be made by understanding the respective veterinary requirements both region-wise and species-wise.

15. Awareness & Promotion - Media, Web, Social Media, Offline Centers (a) Video Consultancy through CSC Centres – Using existing network of CSC centres in villages (~4.67 lakhs as per August 2024 data on CSC website), for video consultancy for Livestock related issues. Need to ensure comfortable timings, and most importantly availability of relevant “experts” from ICAR, State Univs, or KVKs to provide the information. Starting with most underserved states like UP, these CSCs can be expanded to all states. Need to make expert participation in these online sessions as “mandatory” for at least 1 hour/week or 52 hours / year.

(b) Re-think DD Kisan Channel – At least 25% of the content on DD Kisan channel should be oriented towards livestock farmers. Programs should include information on new highproductive/climate resilient breeds, new disease prevention methods, nutrition info, fodder management and common problems. Also, progressive livestock farmers should be given prominent space to motivate others, along with local livestock reporters.

(c) Pashu Chaupal Social Media Groups – Provision of Pashu Chaupal whatsapp channels/groups, where a group-level interaction with farmers can take place, to understand the local challenges as well as sharing of latest innovations by animal experts. Proposal to start it in Pilot mode in 100 most underserved districts in India. This needs to be planned, created and moderated in partnership with empaneled NGOs, to encourage individual and group stakeholders to make extensive use of social media for highlighting livestock related issues.

BREED & FEED
16. It has been well-researched that Indian indigenous breeds of almost all livestock including cattle, buffalo, goats, sheep, camel, perform much better in climate change induced heat and humidity stresses. They are also much more resilient to disease contraction and have a higher rate of recovery compared to foreign breeds. However, with preference for exotic, foreign breeds along with high number of crossbreds, high-quality germplasm of indigenous breeds in natural state is a rarity. Our institutes should work towards dispensation of high-quality sex sorted semen for indigenous species.

17. Almost two-third of the cost of animal production is based on its nutritional input, so appropriate feed management for livestock is needed. Appropriate feed according to the animal needs is paramount for latter’s health, climate adaptation, production, GHG emissions, reproductive capacity and longevity. Huge tracts of land have been used for production of green fodder, which leads to forest destruction and resulting greenhouse impact. Using existing feed farms, fallow/barren/unutilized land and community grazing areas, in a planned way can help address both the farmer’s and livestock needs.

Expected Outcomes
• High-Quality germplasm with sex-sorted semen needs to be made available and accessible to livestock farmers and pastoralists.
• Increased productivity of fodder farming, thus ensuring availability of fodder to meet its ever increasing demand against the background of decreased land availability.
• Improvement in livestock nutrition for better climate-resilience and high productivity.
• Community Awareness, Engagement, and Ownership of livestock breed and feed management as a Common Good for their well-being.
• Develop models for entrepreneurship and job creation by providing better breed and feed access to communities.

Proposed Mechanisms
18. Breed Improvement – Majority of our livestock, are still being bred with semen that is not of high genetic merit leading to non-optimal progenies.

(a) Selective Breeding for Climate - Resilient traits is needed to ensure that only highly productive and resilient animals are produced as per the local conditions. Policy to incentivize selective breeding of climate-resilient breeds of all livestock, preferably employing genomic technologies. Specific provisions to award, recognize and promote farmers who excel and produce such breeds.

(b) Community Awareness and Capacity Building of livestock farmers to understand the need for having high-quality germplasm for latter’s income increase. Comprehensive policy reform to involve community organizations like FPOs, Federations, SHGs, and NGOs to be trained and act as last-mile agent for these services.

(c) Production and Availability of right high-quality sex-sorted semen needs to be made available to small, marginal farmers and pastoralists communities with reasonable pricing, proper training for Artificial Insemination (AI) workers, and continuous engagement. Policy to allocate special budget for doubling current capacity of indigenous high-quality sexsorted germplasm in next 3 years. In proportion, increasing number of AI workers should also be deployed.

(d) R&D on neglected bovine animals – Mithuns & Yaks, and Lifecycle Productivity of Bovine Animals which are found in Himalayan/Forest regions of North-East/Ladakh, to improve the productivity, breeding quality would help our farmers most affected by Climate Change.

19. Development of Community Fodder Banks (CFB) – Promote CFB model to develop the non-arable, wasteland, dryland, into grazing area and fodder growth, to build climate-resilience. This will help in increasing soil fertility, soil retention, carbon sequestration and provision of fodder for livestock.

(a) Best developed CFB villages to be awarded and promoted as Models at state and national levels.

(b) Innovative models where villagers can deposit excess fodder and even get a loan against that feed, to be piloted in 1000 villages in each of the underserved states.

(c) Empanelment of FPOs, social sector organizations for regular monitoring, awareness programs, and reporting of the CFB on a fixed cost basis with annual review, with the aim of complete community ownership in 3 years.

(d) MNREGA to include Community Pasture and Forest development – Need to expand the scope of MNREGA program to include development of barren, community, wasteland, or fallow lands into pasture lands. Additionally, MNREGA programs to include focus on community fodder banks, community forest development, and agroforestry development. FPOs and NGOs to be involved as the key agencies for monitoring and ensuring sustainability of the pasture lands. Propose to make a policy change in MNREGA program to implement it, starting with most underserved states.

FUTURE OF LIVESTOCK SECTOR – NON-BOVINES
20. India has the good fortune to have multiple indigenous ruminant species which are inherently climate resilient. However, our obsession over just one species, namely cows has resulted in the neglect of all the other important indigenous and highly useful and productive ruminants, like buffalos, goats, sheep, camels, donkeys, that we are blessed with. In a world impacted by climate change, India would need to rely on these other ruminants in future, for fulfilling its GHG obligations, and its nutrition and other animal product needs. These species need to be promoted and given priority for breed improvement, health care, nutritious feed, for their inherent high imate-resilience, low feed requirement, and high nutrition products, especially milk. Taking clues from Mozzarella Cheese being marketed exclusively in Italy through its buffalos, similar interventions with our goat, sheep and camel can help raise incomes manifold of small farmers in a climate adaptive manner.

Note : Since the scope of the discussions included only ruminants, so we didn’t cover other important livestock means including Piggery, Poultry, Fishery, Beekeeping etc.

Expected Outcomes
• Recognition and acknowledgment of the contribution of non-bovine sector in national development, underscoring its importance.
• Capacity building and engagement with non-bovine farmers for ensuring better animal health, reproductivity, production, and survival ability.
• Scale-up grassroot innovations like goat banks, community-based livestock insurance, to cover all underserved regions, raising incomes of the most deprived.
• Creation of alternative sources of livelihoods and vocations.
• Awareness, Promotion and Support of Non-Bovine products and entrepreneurs.

Proposed Mechanisms
21. Grassroot Entrepreneurship - Special Incentives for NonBovine Animal Startups – India currently has many startups focused on cow/buffalo milk products, but hardly any for other ruminants like goats, camels, donkeys, sheep etc. With the huge current and projected demand of livestock products, the conditions are ripe to promote Grassroot Entrepreneurship, with special focus on small & marginal farmers and pastoralists, who are especially involved with small ruminants. National Livelihood Mission has schemes to provide “financial support” for these entrepreneurs, but says little in terms of providing marketing, capacity building, disease/health care, and nutrition for non-bovine animals. Policy changes are needed with specific targets on promoting and supporting non-bovine entrepreneurs, and connecting their products to huge Indian retail market, which is primarily focused on cow/buffalo milk only.

(a) Awareness / Campaigns on Benefits of Non-Bovine Products– There’s considerable lack of awareness of the health and nutritional benefits from say camel, goat milk, compared to popular cow milk. Government should make it a priority to push for publicizing the advantages of non-bovine milk and ensure its easy availability for the customers, through print, social media, web platforms and even involving celebrities for its mass appeal.

(b) Promotion of Non-Bovine Products – Similar to the current International Year of Camelids 2024, we need to engage in a long-term promotion of non-bovine products in order to raise public awareness on the great opportunity before us. Policy change to include non-bovine products as key to building a healthier and fitter India by 2047, in a sustainable manner. Provision of Marketing Stalls to livestock entrepreneurs of Goat, Camel, Sheep, Donkey etc., at major conferences, fairs, and exhibitions.

(c) Annual Food Fair & Mega Conference for Non-Bovines to invite national and international players in the non-bovine sector to display their products and technologies for better productivity and high returns. Ensure participation from all major regions and pastoralist communities of India. Policy to ensure that each year, at least one State-Level conference in each State of India, and one National Conference on Non-Bovine Animals are held, focused on promotion and discussion on issues and opportunities in the sector.

22. Goat Banks – Innovative way to directly provide pregnant goats for small, landless, marginal farmers, as loan with recovery in terms of kids after few years. With sustained technical support for feed, health, housing of the loaned goats, this strategy can give manifold returns. Policy support needed to ensure that such a bank exists for every gram panchayat. Pilot to be started for next 3 years targeting 1000 underserved villages, having maximum number of non-bovines.

23. Community-based Livestock Insurance – Innovative model where community pays a nominal premium to insure their animals against fatality, due to diseases, drought etc. In pilots conducted by few NGOs for goats, it has already proven to be effective with goats, leading to higher earnings per animal. Need to expand this model to other ruminants also with government considering underwriting cost of Insurance Premium. Provisions may also be ensured for pastoralist communities.

24. Documentation & Promotion – Need to document and promote the country-wide initiatives by different organizations and entrepreneurs in small ruminants’ sector, especially for the benefits of small, marginal farmers and pastoralists, and scale them to create livelihoods and nutrition security, especially among youths. These needs to be promoted through social media, news channels, and print.

MITIGATION STRATEGIES
CIRCULAR BIO-ECONOMY
25. Climate change challenges can be mitigated by better and informed use of our food and animal waste resource. Around 70% of the cost of animal production is based on nutritional input. Fruits/Vegetable/Crop waste provides organic nutrients and supports stress-relieving, helping animal fight against climate, production and disease-related stress. Increasing the ratio of nutritional food waste as part of animal nutrition compared to traditional feed/fodder can help in mitigation of Climate Crisis.

Expected Outcomes
• Better utilization of farm & human food waste for livestock feed, resulting in net reduction in emissions.
• Establishment of Circular Bio-Economy across the nation, starting from rural to urban areas.

Proposed Mechanisms
26. Integrated Farming – Goat/Sheep/Cattle farming coupled with poultry and fishing to ensure that all farm and animal waste is used as a manure or animal feed in a circular fashion to increase the small farmer income. Mission-oriented approach for developing 1 lakh Integrated Farming villages by 2030 would help create the necessary momentum.

27. Alternative Feeds/Feed Supplements, with potential to provide nutrition as well as reduce GHG emissions, like Harit Dhara (developed by NIANP), inclusion of Spices etc., which can reduce GHG gases by 2030% in livestock, need to be explored and provided marketing and policy support. As farmers would be unwilling to make any investments to reduce the GHG emissions, so they need to be “nudged” by providing them access to finance. Policy changes needed to make it mandatory for any animal shelter hosting > 1000 cattle to include this formulation to start with.

28. For getting the methodology for estimation of enteric methane emissions, globally acceptable, the institutes involved in such research activities need to work with international registries through the Methodology Approval Process. This will enable the realization of carbon credit benefits.

29. Focus on REUSE of food before Recycle / Composting - Pickup of food waste from homes and delivered to nearby gaushalas and animal farms. Policy to allow and encourage companies and non-profits to work with rag-pickers communities, for helping with this.

(a) Human Food-Waste from homes / restaurants / hotels & Unsold / Perishable / Overripe Fruits / Vegetables from farmer markets etc. can be picked daily for feeding the animals and provide proper nutrition. Fruit/Vegetable waste provides nutrients and supports stress-relieving, helping animal fight against climate, production and disease-related stress. Policy initiative for mandatory provision of picking up food waste involving non-profits, and linking them with local animal farms for easy convergence.

(b) Policy to ensure that Fruit / Vegetable Product companies like juice, jam, pickle, soft-drinks, medicines, packaged fruits and vegetables for ensuring that organic leftovers are properly transported to the nearby farms. All organic food waste should be properly accounted for by the companies and delivered to nearby farms.

(c) Recently expired food materials like bread, biscuits, milk, milk products etc, can be re-purposed for livestock feed, if procured in time. Most of the time, these products are even in a good condition for human consumption but are considered bad as per the printed expiry date. Putting these materials in a proper ratio with feed can help provide vital nutrients for livestock. Policy to enforce proper transport of these expired materials.

(d) Farm Waste can act as regular feed to the animals and can also act as alternative to stubble burning. Existing policy needs to “prioritize” use of farm leftovers as feed over other ways of re-use like as bio-fuel, through better financial incentives.

GREEN ENERGY FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVESTOCK MANAGEMENT
30. Need to use Green Energy like solar, wind, biogas plants, to power the processing infra, housing, and energy needs for livestock management. Use of Biogas can dramatically reduce the impact of methane emissions from our bovine, produce nutrient-rich slurry as natural fertilizer for farming, and make livestock farm (mainly gaushalas) self-sufficient in its cooking fuel and energy needs. Gaushala / Livestock farms, even those housing stary cattle, need to be incentivized to be developed as a “profitable units” where every component including animal waste is generating revenue and helping environment.

Expected Outcomes
• Abundant use of Green Energy (Solar, Wind, Hydrogen, Biogas) in livestock farms for energy needs.

• Prevalence of Self-Sufficient & Green Model Gaushalas/Livestock Farms across India with “zero” waste.

Proposed Mechanisms
31. Incentives for Gaushalas/Livestock Farms - Policy to make it mandatory for each registered Gaushala with > 100 bovines to have Biogas plants across the country to be completed in Mission Mode by 2030 with appropriate focus. Awareness campaigns to ensure that good livestock feed is NOT used for biogas but only unusable organic waste. Enhanced incentives in terms of the capacity installed and gas production.

32. Incentives for Biogas Companies - Policy to encourage Biogas plant installation companies, to work with Gaushalas and establish more biogas plants. Financial Incentives based on the capacity installed each year by the company to be given after 5 years of successful operation and verification of each installed plant.

33. Solar / Wind Plants for Livestock Management - Policy to promote installation of solar/wind and other clean energy plants for livestock feed management, silage making, housing, and energy needs, for energy self-sufficiency.

CONCLUSION
34. India’s livestock sector faces increasing challenges due to climate change, particularly for non-bovine species that are integral to rural livelihoods especially for small, marginal, landless farmers and pastoralists. Addressing these challenges requires a multi-pronged approach that combines scale-up of grassroot extension and training, improved breeding and feeding practices, and the implementation of circular bio-economy solutions. By adopting integrated livestock management systems and fostering policy and institutional support, stakeholders can build resilience within this sector. Awareness campaigns and incentives will further drive the adoption of these practices, ensuring a sustainable and climate-resilient future for livestock farming in India.