India Animal Production

The livestock sector is undergoing massive changes in the global context in response to population growth, increased globalisation, and demand for food products of animal origin in developed and more so in developing countries. Over the last two decades, the livestock sector has grown at an annual rate of 5.6 per cent, which is higher than the overall growth of agricultural sector (3.3 per cent).

Several studies indicate that livestock rearing has significant positive impact on equity generation in terms of income and employment and poverty reduction in rural areas, as distribution of livestock is more egalitarian compared to land. India is emerging as a global player in livestock production with special reference to milk, poultry and egg production.

With the Indian human population now exceeding a billion, contributing to more than 17 per cent of the world population, the country demands the same share of the total worlds output of food grains and animal protein. The contribution of livestock to the total GDP is over 20 per cent with 72 per cent of the people living in the rural areas, and more than 40 per cent are engaged in agriculture.

India has 57 per cent of the world’s buffalo population and 16 per cent of the cattle population. India is also the largest milk producer in the world. It ranks first in respect of cattle and buffalo population, third in sheep and second in goat population in the world.

In the UK, contrary to the dramatic rise in the profitability in the farming sector in the 1990s, the current euro/sterling exchange rate has pushed the profitability downwards. BSE and other disease episodes has also played a major role in the economics of the livestock sector.

Many of the farmers in India depend on the traditional way of farming with very small holdings of animals. The sheer number of people involved in the business is so big, it has made India one of the largest producers of milk in the world. The growth in the milk sector has been 4.2 per cent, poultry 11.8 per cent between 1990 and 2000, and the same is expected without much increase in the population leading to increased productivity both in terms of improved genetics and also better management practices.

The export of buffalo meat from India is steadily increasing and the trend is going to improve due to the religious constraints of the cow slaughter in India, which will provide a platform for other meat products exports from the country.

The total sheep and goat population was 61.47 million and 124 million respectively as per 2003 census and is expected to grow at a rate of 1.12 percent. With proper practices and interventions this can definitely be improved and can be a good export market potential for India.

Poultry production has seen its halcyon days in the year 2006 and early 2007 where the market prices were very much favourable to farmers. The Indian poultry industry currently doesn’t have the technology to grow in terms of genetics; infrastructure, cold storage and this area can be of great interest for a country like UK where the systems are already in place.

India is the second largest Scampi producer in the world with an annual production of 30,450 MT in 2002-03. With A 8.118 Km coastline and abundant labour, India has the potential to meet the needs of domestic and overseas markets.

The UK has approximately 181 million poultry and exports a variety of poultry products, including live chickens and turkeys, various poultry meat and offal products, and eggs.

The UK has a sheep population of 17 million and a swine population of over 4.731 million pigs which contributes 3% of the EU`s pig meat production. There has, however, been a negative growth in both cases in 2005 compared to 2004.

The opportunities for exports from India are also immense as the export trade is growing steadily. The total exports in the year 2004-05 have exceeded 1.2 billion USD and the leather sector itself contributed 50 percent of the exports. Mutually beneficial business can be easily envisaged between the two countries (India and the UK) in this sector. Dairy and its products have a great potential to be exported from India along with powdered egg, which has captured a sizeable market outside India.

Some of the areas that might be of interest for the UK to look into in the Indian livestock industries are; technology development, focus at India as a distribution point or locus for expanding its markets to far east, disease management laboratories, and improvement in processing and further processing.

India does not put any restriction quantitatively on the import of livestock and its products into India, but high tariffs, restrictive sanitary import regulations and lack of infrastructure are the major constraints for imports.

There are lots of opportunities for investments in the livestock sector starting from improvement of genetics, management practices, services, animal health products and development, processing industry and retailing. Many multinational companies have already started investing in India in the retail sector but the opportunities are immense looking at the future consumption pattern.

Drawing the world’s attention to the Asian markets, India has been quite successful in harnessing its potential to grow livestock in recent years. With improved technology and better management practices there is real opportunity to develop the business synergies between India and the United Kingdom.

Courtesy of the 41st Annual University of Nottingham Feed Conference. Our thanks to the author and Conference Organisers, a Committee consisting of both University and Industry colleagues. The full paper will appear in the Conference Proceedings ('Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition - 2007', edited by Phil Garnsworthy and Julian Wiseman) published by Nottingham University Press in the autumn of 2007