Goat is usually referred to as the “cow of the poor”. Goats can be kept with little expense in the marginal and undulating lands unsuitable for all types of livestock. Rearing of goat is easy and can be done by landless laborers, women and children. It makes use of low quality roughage and because of small size , simple requirement of housing , more resistance to disease , easily disposable of its product is considered as gold that can be encashed at anytime by the farmers. Goat has the ability to survive on little vegetation and grass. Goat farming suits India’s climate and economic situation. This is evident from the fact that every year 1/3rd of goats are slaughtered. But the population has been constantly rising. It was 40.7 million in 1951 and now India has a goat population of 115 million as per the 1992 census. Also it’s 148 million as per 2019 census.
Goat plays a significant role in providing supplementary income and livelihood to millions of resource poor farmers and landless laborers of rural India. Small ruminant rearing ensures self-employment and acts as a cushion in distress situations like drought and famine.
The contribution of goatery to the country can be gauged from the following facts:
| Item | Quantity (Yearly production) |
| Goat milk | 1.5 million tonnes |
| Meat | 0.4 million tonnes |
| Leather | 0.1 million tonnes |
Goat keeping has now become an integral part of rural development program in most of the developing countries like ours . Goat milk and meat are rich in protein. Moreover to the poor it serves as insurance during crisis ; also provides manure with high NPK value suitable for agricultural farming . It also acts responsible for clearing bushes while making land worth for cultivation .At present with the declining trends of land holdings, goat husbandry emerges as one of the viable livelihood options among the rural masses.
As we understand and acknowledge the issues concerning goat farming our business model has a solution to the problem. Our Center of excellence will primary focus on the overall improvement of goat farmers which includes the following factors:-
To increase the meat and milk production per se and per animal, breed improvement is the key strategy. There are several Methods of Genetic Improvement on which our institute will work.
This includes 4 steps Action Plan with focus on separate identified breeds for meat and milk production. The 4 steps are:
Our institute will work on prospects for using novel feeds from various sources to provide alternative sources of protein and energy, such as plantation crops and crops such as maize, sorghum, millet and groundnut and other fodder like CO4, Dasrath, Napier, and Subabul. We will train farmers in preparing silage which contain high protein for the animal. While there is potential to improve livestock productivity in semi-arid and arid areas, probably the most feasible solutions require integrated application of what is already known, rather than new technology. Our focus will be creating integration of our farmer from their available resources.
Occurrence of diseases causes heavy economic losses in terms of livestock health and production. Control of animal diseases assumes prime importance in the crucial time of shifting of animal agriculture from extensive to intensive and commercial system of management. Presence and accumulation of infectious agents in the environment lead to reduction in quality and quantity of animal products. Our Strategic will be to control and eradication of economically important diseases which result in enhancing goat production.
Diseases in Goats can be broadly classified as non-infectious and infectious. Prevention of disease plays a major role in increasing profitability in a Goat farm. Our Institute will support in vaccination against infectious diseases which is an important component of health management.
The last few decades have seen a general reduction in the burden of livestock diseases, except PPR as a result of more effective drugs and vaccines and improvements in diagnostic technologies and services.
Our focus will be understood the market and preparing it to respond to emerging market trends. Most of the meat production and marketing practices in Odisha are traditional. We have our own MOM & POP fresh meat stores in the bock of Bhawanipatna and we are expanding the foot print of our stores.There is a dire need to modernize the meat production and marketing system. We will on E-marketing or other E connectivity methods and Use of Marketing Intelligence facilities.
Our center of excellence will be an apex institute in goat farming training. We create a capacity to train future goat farmers. We will also become an aggregator for the insurance scheme to the farmers. The basic objective of the Goat Insurance Scheme is to provide insurance cover to animal in the case of accident including fire, lightning, storm, tempest, flood, inundation, earthquake, famine and diseases contracted or occurring during the period of the policy for project areas.
73270 92963
73270 92963