Indian Cattle: An Asset for Smallholders under Changing Climatic Scenario

Cattle rearing being complementary to agriculture has been a part of social and cultural heritage of Indian civilisation. Cattle have been the source of livelihood for landless and resource poor farmers, majority of them living below the poverty line. It has been well established that whenever crops fail miserably due to natural calamities, livestock have been the savoir of the farmers. Indigenous cattle have been instrumental in providing milk, milk products, draft power, bio-fertiliser and bio-fuel besides producing bio-molecules and other products beneficial for human health. The distribution of cattle amongst various categories of animal keepers revealed that marginal, small and semi-medium farmers on an average have about 89% of cattle. However, the innate production potential of cattle is not exploited to the fullest extent by these farmers due to lack of awareness about the improved resources, technologies and other inputs attributed to lower literacy of this stratum of the rural people.