Professional Documents
Culture Documents
First Author
D Thirunavukkarasu
Livestock Extension Specialist
39/1. II nd floor,
Red Hills Road, Ambattur
Chennai –53
Tamil Nadu – 600 053
Second Author
N K Sudeepkumar
Associate Professor
Department of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Extension and Entrepreneurship
Madras Veterinary College
Chennai, Tamil Nadu – 600 007
India
husbandry contributes around 6 to 7 per cent of the Gross domestic product (GDP). Milk continues
to top farm commodities in terms of its contribution to the national economy, which is higher than
that of paddy and wheat (Kolli and Kulshreshtha, 1997 and Sharma 2004). On other hand the small
ruminant rearing contributes around 24 billion rupees (Approximately 45 rupees makes one US
dollar) per annum to rural economy (Conference of state ministers of animal husbandry and dairy
development, Agenda notes, Dec, 2004). Small and marginal farming community posses two-third
of milch animals (Taneja and Brithal, 2005) while most of the small ruminants are with marginal and
landless farming community. This section of community is a major part of the vulnerable section of
the rural community and is one of the important occupations of the rural women who are still more
vulnerable.
The above section of community has been brought under open economy. In the last fifteen years the
central and state governments under the guidelines of donor agencies started to restructure the
government services and livestock services was not an exceptional. The emerging changes (structural
reforms) and new trade polices of open economy has brought out new environment for the farming
community. In addition the policy makers, researchers and scholars are debating in favor of
privatization of agricultural extension and also working out ways and means the same in the fields.
The campaigners for privatization stated to mobilize support by quoting low efficiency, quality of
services and lack of funds as the compelling reasons private participation and cost recovery
mechanisms in public sector. In this background access / right to relevant information and new
process on livestock farming issues becomes more complex. This background necessitates us look
into the existing livestock extension educational systems to farming community and emerging
changes. In this situation the paper attempts to bring out the changes and also forecasts the possible
State level animal husbandry departments and their grass root level organizations - Livestock
extension service is a mandate of the state level animal husbandry departments. State animal
14,573 veterinary dispensaries, 23,682 veterinary aid and 43,782 Artificial Insemination (AI)
centers spread out widely through out the country to carry out various activities of the
departments (Sasidhar and Chandel, 2003). In general this department has at its apex has the
directorate of animal husbandry at state level, while it has a veterinary dispensary at panchayat
union level (headquarter for cluster of villages / hamlets) and further down has animal breeding
centers / sub centers which covers few villages. At the district level the deputy director / joint
director is responsible for animal husbandry activities and at grass root level veterinarians and
para staff represent the animal husbandry departments. Currently more than 10000 cattle unit
heads needs to be taken care by one veterinarian (Sudeepkumar, 1999) against the
recommendation of per 5000 cattle unit per head (National commission on Agriculture, 1976).
Similar conditions exist in case of supporting staffs (para staffs). As per the job chart,
veterinarians need to carry out regular services such as treatment, breeding, record keeping,
administrative works and extension activities with the support of para staff. But with this work
load the probability of carrying out extension activities become limited (Sudeepkumar, 1999).
On the other hand under the guidelines of donor agencies (World bank, International Monitory
Fund, Asian development bank etc) structural policy changes in government makes state
governments reluctant to recruit new human resources in place of existing vacancies and for the
last few years there was no new recruitments of human resources and they were in tempo of
privatization of various services including extension services. For example as per Orissa state
livestock policy, the extension will be restructured to promote convergent approach involving
various technical training, the financial service organization, delivery of quality services at the
doorstep moving from free services to payment for quality and timely services. This can be said
Secondly the budget allotted to extension services very limited (Morton et al, 1997). This fact
holds good now also. Pondicherry animal husbandry department spends around 2.6 per cent of its
total expenditure in 2002-03 while the adjoining state Tamil Nadu has spent 0.04 per cent in
2003-04 of total departmental budget. Central and state government in the past allocated
inadequate funds for agricultural research programmes and public sector extension services of
crop and animal husbandry, which has now collapsed with further cuts in allocation of budget by
the central and state governments during the last decade (Anonymous 2001, Anonymous 2004
and Birthal and Jha, 2005). Along with other factors low budgeting reflects the whole extension
system. The current extension system lacks human resources, infrastructure and adequate
financial support (Bhat and Das, 2002, Ravikumar and Mahesh 2006) and provides inferior
services and meager attention on small ruminant livestock extension (Conference of state
ministers of animal husbandry and dairy development, Agenda notes, Dec, 2004) was being
reported. On other hand government slowly withdrawing from the services under structural
change programmes where further funding becomes a question mark. All this put together
hampers and will continue to hamper the livestock extension activities from the departments.
The “National project for cattle and Buffalo breeding” programme of central government
directing state governments to privatize breeding services (structural change in breeding services
was brought out by the government of India with the guidelines of Swiss development
et al, 2000) through autonomous institutions such as Andhra pradesh livestock development
agency (APLDA), Tamilnadu Livestock development agency etc. The new service providers
operate under the principle of cost recovery for their services. These initiatives were already
playing role in dissemination of information on breeding and other related topics. This in turn
results in the new batch of stakeholders (private individuals / companies /agents /semi
government institutes) who likely engage in livestock extension along with breeding services.
Currently 26 states have been brought under this project (Conference of state ministers of animal
husbandry and dairy development, Agenda notes, Dec, 2004). Since this stakeholder works on the
principle of cost recovery and maximization of profit, the farmer may end up in paying extension
budget and human resource limitations. This in turn reflects in poor performance at the filed
levels. Instead of correcting the existing lacunae in the system the services are subcontracted out
or subjected to cost recovery from farmers who are already resource poor.
Producer’s cooperative societies – Producer cooperatives for milk, sheep and poultry were
established in order to free the farming community from the clutches of middleman. In a long run
only the Milk producer’s cooperative societies (MPCS) were sustained while the Sheep breeders
cooperatives and poultry cooperatives failed. The failure may be due poor interest among the
farmers. In addition rapid industrialization of poultry sector (both broiler and egg production) and
the entry of contract farming may contributed to the inactiveness of poultry cooperatives. Now
there some attempts by the non-governmental and developmental organizations to bring up the
cooperatives in sheep and poultry sector. The dairy cooperatives, which survive over decades,
operate through three-tier structures (State level-federation, district level-Union Village level –
MPCS). Dairy cooperatives carry out dairy extension services as part of their mandate. The
federation apex body at the state level has a centralized publications unit, which produces
extension materials based on the problems encountered in the fields of union. At the district level
the union organizes exposure visits, audiovisual shows, distribution of extension materials
through Milk Producer’s Cooperative Societies (MPCS) and establishes demonstration units on
dairy and fodder. The MPCS are the grass root level organization of the dairy cooperatives and
receive backend support from the dairy unions and state level federations. In turn the state
federations and unions get support from National dairy development board (NDDB). On
comparison with crop producer cooperatives and other stakeholders in extension (agriculture,
state agricultural universities, NGOs) has better contact intensity and manpower for extension
activities. (Sulaiman and Sadamate, 2000). But still they are able to cover only 20 per cent of the
cooperatives to more autonomous institutions makes them function as like to private business
house with a limited support from government. Under Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided
Cooperative Societies Act-1995, the diary cooperatives in Andhra Pradesh province became
autonomous and the support of central and state becomes scanty. Currently six milk unions in the
above state start operate on their own without any support from state federation. They are
operating on complete recovery mechanisms. Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh
are few states following Andhra Pradesh model (Parthasarathy, 2002). Thus cooperatives are
passing on the cost of dairy extension services to farming community. In this background dairy
unions were started to charging the dairy farming community for the extension services
(Chapman and Tripp, 2003). In coming days cooperative sectors are expected to fall in similar
lines and the cost of dairy extension services would eventually fall on shoulders of dairy farmers.
Veterinary / agricultural educational institutes and their substations – The prime agenda of the
veterinary and agricultural universities are three folds namely education, producing skilled human
resources, research and extension services. These universities addresses livestock and fodder
related extension activities through associated bodies. These bodies are principally Extension and
communication departments, regional stations, KVK (Krishi vigyan Kendra) and Agricultural
Technology Information Center (ATIC- a single window system of delivering for agriculture and
liestock information and various inputs) and farmers training centers. The Extension and
training, conducts postal courses, and produces mass media programmes on livestock husbandry.
But activities of these institutes were restricted to a limited number of local areas (Sulaiman and
Van den Ban, 2003). Generally the KVK operates under the guidelines of the local agricultural /
veterinary sciences university. But some NGOs also operate KVKs, under the guidelines of
ICAR. One of the mandates of KVKs is to update extension personnel on emerging advances in
research and organize vocational training programmes on various rural livelihood options for the
The government support for these institutes continue to reduce, resulting in working out cost
recovery mechanisms for its educational services. Under this background the supplementary
activities does not like to get any more attention. This in turn forces the universities to convert the
extension services as paid service. The publications that are brought to farmers are now sold at
various outlets.
Private industries- In poultry sector the private industries / corporate houses play a predominant
role. They work with poultry farming community under various levels of production. And their
relation also varies. In broiler farming a high degree of contract farming starting from supply of
day old chick to procurement of marketable broiler and selling to final consumer exists (ie from
hatchery to dinning table). But in case of egg production private companies participate at
different levels. The companies engaged in contact farming or supplying of inputs or procurement
hatcheries, feed manufactures, drug producers through their representatives or marketing agents
push up the information for increased business turn out in favor of the firm. They carry out the
Implementation of Milk and Milk products order 1992 (MMPO 1992) and later amendments
resulted in MMPO resulted in opening of dairy sector for organized private sector participation.
This resulted in entry of organized private dairies on a large scale under contract system. Well
Known examples are Nestle, Smithline, Hindustan Lever, Heritage and Hatsun Agro Limited. These
corporate houses operate with farming community through a contract agreement. They provide a
variety of input services to dairy members, including dairy extension (Thirunavukkarasu and
Sudeepkumar, 2005). These private dairies organize mass contact programmes such as animal
health camps, dairy educational tours and also publish a number of printed materials on dairy
husbandry. Similar to poultry sector the dairy feed companies are also started to push the
information through direct contacts and mass media. Drug and vaccine companies organize
similar type of activities with the support of their marketing people and local sales agents and
In recent years the government is reluctant to invest in livestock sector and intensive promotion
of private investment has resulted in entry of corporate such as Charoen Pokphand, Hindustan
lever and expansion existing livestock related companies to various sub sectors of livestock field
(Example- Venkey an Indian monopoly in poultry sector expanding from hatchery business to
vaccines and contract farming). This all indicates in coming days, more intensive participation
from business houses likely to take place in this sector. Private / corporate participation pushes
(corporate pro in formation to the farming community rather than rational information on new
livestock technologies and innovations) its own commercial interest information resulting in
hardship to farming community and risk to the environment in the long run. The character of
information has already started to take “U” turn from pro poor to corporate pro (from information
to advertisement)
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and others – In general the role of NGOs in livestock
extension and other livestock services were limited to few geographical areas. But in recent years
the NGOs participation in livestock sector has increased. On their own interest many NGOs
started to participate in this sector. Additionally various state governments stated to sub contract
various livestock services to NGOs. It can be recollected from the initiation of DANIDA (Danish
international development agency) and Tamil Nadu animal husbandry department collaborated
programme, which invoved in enwrapping NGOs to create a pool of private extension workers.
The popular NGOs engaged in these activities were BAIF (Bharathiya Agro industrial federation)
Anthra, JK Gram Vikas Yogana trust and Pradan etc. These NGOs work on development of
community based animal health workers and inseminators. These para staff also takes care of
disseminating information on various livestock issues. Some of the NGOs provide their service
on cost basis, while others provide it as a social service. The NGOs activity on livestock sector
does not seem to stop just here. According to Ahuja (2004) the NGOs activity in this filed
organizes and mobilizes the latent market demand for animal health services. This means in
future, the NGOs will facilitate consolidation and organization of livestock services for private
participation or NGOs on its own will mature as a private party. This all together will end up in
adding cost burdens for farming community and when private players come into the scene with
Some freelance publications include study materials for livestock farmers in the local language.
The local newspaper “Eenadu” in Andhra Pradesh and “Dinamalar” in Tamilnadu provinces has a
regular agricultural section in it. Currently in many of the local languages farmer’s magazine are
also available. The elite group of farming community mostly utilizes it. Their reach to common
man is limited. While the central ministry and national institutes namely National dairy research
institute, Indian veterinary research institute and other ICAR institutes on livestock and fodder
and their sub stations organize various training programmes on livestock issues for farmers and
supporting staffs of cooperatives and animal husbandry departments. But the number of
programmes directly to farmers is limited and their extension advisory services are limited to the
locality of the institute. On the other hand animal husbandry wing on animal husbandry, Ministry
of Agriculture had (1992 –93) a budget of 200 million rupees to sponsor state institutes to
organize extension programme. But in general they don’t engage in any direct extension
activities.
Recent Initiatives
ATMA (Agricultural Technology management Agency) and Agriclinics – Agricultural
Technology management Agency is being implemented in 7 states of India as one of the new
extension innovations after Training & Visiting system. This initiative at state level has working
and state agricultural and /or veterinary universities while at district level similar working groups
are set with their representatives of the above institutes. At a lower level it has farm information
and advisory centers, which has established links and formed various sub committees with
representation from farmers and community-based organization. The Farmer information center
has an agricultural extension officer, livestock extension officer and horticultural extension
officer. This whole new initiative in extension attempts to cover all activities under an umbrella
to give a single window for extension system and also works out model for complete cost
recovery mechanisms. One of the aims of ATMA programme is to recover partial or complete
cost of extension services through a phased manner. In coming days the ATMA may work on
The government of India, under the ministry of agriculture and NABARD (National bank for
agriculture and rural development) initiated new concept called agri-clinics to privatize livestock
services including livestock extension along with agriculture. The main objective of the
programme was to provide input services including extension services to farming community
through private individuals / groups. Under this initiative veterinary clinic and two feed units has
been established throughout the country. Since agriclinic is owned by the individuals (private)
they are charging for whatever service they provide to the livestock farming community.
Information technology based village information centers - On the other hand Information
Technology is emerging as a media in rural areas. Development VSAT and corDECT technology
made the Internet connectivity easier and cheaper to the rural India. This type of technology
facilitates easy access rural market (Prahalad and Hart, 2002) and also facilitates organizing
contract farming / procurement of primary goods. Corporate houses such as ITC (Indian Tobacco
company), HLL (Hindustan lever limited) and MSSL (Malobika Ghatak, 2002) were tapping the
rural market opportunity through IT innovations in India. ITC alone has reached out to more than
2.4 million farmers in 21,000 villages and six states through 4,100 e-Choupals, which are IT
based rural village information and service centers of ITC (Anonymous 2004). While Hindustan
Lever limited has started to experiment in its iSakthi project by selling its veterinary drugs with
support of Andhra Pradesh eSeva (IT based rural village Information and service centers) centers.
In this background the government of India started to pool the efforts of above stakeholders into
India Vision 2007 multi stakeholders project. This aims to bring out IT based village knowledge
information centers for more than half a million villages with in few years. Emerging of IT in the
rural backdrop as a new medias is likely to play predominant role in agriculture and livestock
extension. These trends are likely to give an upper hand to private sector and result in
good.
Firstly it is necessary understand the background of livestock production in the open economy.
The Central and state governments are vigorously implementing globalization. Opening of the
economy, dismantling of quantity restrictions and reduction of import tariff on various livestock
products has started slowly bringing out changes in livestock products market. The international
brands are starting to replace the Indian dairy products in local market. The dumping of milk
products by New Zealand and Denmark has resulted in sharp decline of ghee prices (Sharma,
2002). In coming days with dismantling the left over restrictions on import and paving the way
for the subsidized dairy and meat products will throw more uncertainties. In the export front the
Indian products are unable to make much impression in the international market against highly
subsidized livestock products of developed countries. The entry of Nestle (Swiss), Sodiaal
(France), Schreiber (USA), Bongrain (France), Lactalis (France) Rabo (Holland) and Fonterra
(New Zealand) corporate in the Indian dairy sector (Jeremiah, 2004) and expansion of corporate
farming is in the forefront. Similar trends in poultry also noticed. Thus the subsistence farming
The subsistence livestock farming which needs stronger intervention through government
livestock services are being exposed to removal of existing meager subsidies, privatization and
cost recovery mechanisms through reduction in role of public sector. Due to this the cost of inputs
such as the feed and fodder, breeding services, veterinary services, preventive measures and drugs
are increasing. This all-together increase the cost of milk production per kilogram is around 10
rupees (Hemme et al, 2003) for a landless dairy farmer. Thus emerging uncertainties in market
In the above background in the name of “bringing investment” promoting the private and or
corporate in livestock sector leads to informal or formal entry in livestock extension activities.
While the IT for rural development further supports them in establishing their activities. The
existing public services systems, which are under staffed, poor and inefficient, either working to
get out from this job. This all put together will promote corporate pro information,
industrialization of livestock farming and finally throw out small farming communities out of
business.
Conclusion
The participation of private and cost recovery / completing getting out from the assigned job by
the cooperatives and animal husbandry departments will shift the livestock extension from
“Information as public good to commercial good”. This will eventually lead towards of denial
environment through industrializations of livestock farming and ignoring public health and
human hazards. Finally it may end up in break down of relation between the extension workers
The crop husbandry, which was major supporter of livelihood, has been crippled in open market,
debts and lack of extension services. Similar threats are being exposed to livestock farming,
which has been acting as a buffer or as livelihood options during crop and market failures. Thus
emerging changes in livestock extension along with other factors are further likely to aggravate
the agrarian crisis leaving over two-third of Indian farming community who are landless,
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Available at
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