A Study on Housing Management Strategies Adopted by Livestock-rearers in Flood-prone Districts of Odisha

Livestock-rearing plays a prominent role in strengthening India’s rural economy. It has the potential to act as an instrument to bring about socio-economic transformation, but of late, flood as a result of climate variability seem to affect livestock-rearing; and thereby it became a serious issue and has been considered as one of the most serious challenges faced by livestock-rearers; and hence in this context it was felt important to know about the housing management strategies followed by the livestock-rearers in combating the flood vagaries. The present study was conducted in purposively selected flood-prone districts of Odisha, with 120 livestock-rearers selected as the respondent of this study, which revealed that majority (55.38%) of the respondents were constructing their animal sheds slightly above the ground level. ‘Making the animal sheds slightly above from the ground level’ was the most preferred strategy, followed to cope up with impact of flood. It was also found that majority (38.33%) of the respondent had high level of adoption in housing management practices. Accordingly, it is suggested that documentation and validation of such practices and techniques should be done for the purpose of further capacity building programmes.