Animal Husbandry & Dairy

The National Livestock Mission supports entrepreneurship in poultry, sheep and goat rearing, piggery and feed and fodder production, largely through a capital subsidy on an approved project financed by a bank. It is aimed at building small enterprises rather than adding one or two animals to an existing household. For a farming family, the strategic value is that livestock income arrives through the year — weekly or monthly — while crop income arrives twice a year in lumps, which is what makes a household able to absorb a bad crop season.

This mission works on the productivity of indigenous cattle and buffalo through breed improvement — artificial insemination delivered at the farmer's door, sex-sorted semen to raise the proportion of female calves, and the strengthening of breeding infrastructure. For a dairy household the relevant point is that milk yield is decided largely at breeding, years before it shows up in the bucket, and that these services are delivered through the state animal husbandry department rather than applied for as a subsidy.