Nomadic duck rearing in and around Puducherry region - an explorative study

Nomadic duck rearing is a dominant traditional system prevailing in Puducherry region since many decades but did not get attention from the policy makers. The changing trends of the duck rearing from natural hatching to purchasing of laying ducks directly from the hatcheries and selling the spent ducks to the places where there is a demand for duck meat and the role of the middlemen in the marketing of the duck eggs and meat remain unexplored. A network of three states involved in the rearing of ducks and marketing needs also to be studied. This paper aims at providing details on nomadic duck rearing, a dominant traditional system prevailing in and around Puducherry region. The nomads remain as bonded labour to the duck contractors and remain indebted to them till they settle the loan availed, through supply of eggs and spent ducks. Duck rearing is a vendor dominated venture where the duck rearers contribute their labour in rearing the ducks supplied by the vendors on loan. The entire expenditure incurred by the vendors will be recovered from the rearers through eggs and spent duck which will be sold usually in Kerala where there is a good demand for duck eggs and duck meat. The only job of these nomads is to forage the ducks and collect the eggs. The duck flocks often migrated to nearby districts in search of fresh forage and water resources as each district in Tamil Nadu has different cropping patterns and rainfall distribution.