livestock keepers – Page 2 – Livestock Futures

19. June 2014

Make Cheese, not Mass!

munster cheese — Bargkass (mountain cheese), ripening in a cheese cellar in the Vosges in France

More! Faster! Cheaper! Mass production is the mantra of global livestock development as breeding companies create ever more productive genetics and farmers and countries are caught in cut-throat competition worldwide. “Producing more with less” is also the guiding principle of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL), a multistakeholder platform that seeks to make livestock production more sustainable, both environmentally and socially.

The spiraling pressure has not been good to livestock producers. Exhorted to “grow or go”, they need to invest heavily in infrastructure and additional animals if they want to stay in business. They get caught up to the hilt in debt, as my colleague Evelyn Mathias has shown in her study “Livestock out of balance. From asset to liability in the course of the Livestock Revolution?“. In all developed countries the number of farmers that can make a living from livestock has plummeted precipitously and this is being repeated in the emerging economies, such as Brazil, China, Thailand, and India, as well as Eastern European countries that have recently joined the European Union. Its a trend that does not forebode well for the sustainability of the livestock sector as holdings become ever bigger leading to huge problems with manure recycling, public health and animal welfare, besides abandoned rural areas.

Yet its still possible to buck the trend and make a decent living from keeping a small number of animals which do not even need to be “highly productive” in the conventional sense, and even enjoy doing so! The secret is to make cheese. This is the lesson learnt during a recent whirlwind tour to artisanal cheese makers in three European countries originally inspired by the desire to test whether cheese making would be an option for processing camel milk in Rajasthan.

Our first stop was Robert Paget in Lower Austria who produces camembert and mozzarella from about 30 goats and a dozen buffaloes. Robert started out more than 30 years ago with a single goat and believes in growing in quality rather than in quantity. He has a long waiting list of customers – both individuals and gourmet shops – who have to order their cheese quite sometime ahead. Robert covers almost the entire value chain, although he rents the land that produces the fodder for his herds. He has help to milk, but makes and sells the cheese entirely on is own and still finds time to share his knowledge in cheese making courses at home and abroad and supporting the local Slow Food movement.

Robert Paget of Bufala-Connection explaining the intricacies of gourmet cheese making

The next stop on our tour was Northern Italy where we had the pleasure to meet Alessandro a very young man in his early twenties who has embarked on a cheese making career. Alessandro is crazy about his goats and he loves what he is doing – the only downer being the inordinate amount of bureaucracy he has to put up with.

Alex goat hugger — Alessandro Breda in a village near Bergamo (Northern Italy) hugging the goats that are the basis for his cheese making enterprise

Over the span of a few years and with small investment he has built up a faithful clientele for his cheese which he is crafting with the help of his mother in a tiny production unit in his parents’ garden. His enthusiasm – and his lovingly hand crafted cheeses – are absolutely enthralling.

Another interesting experience was waiting for us in the Alsace region of France at the Pensées Sauvages farm of the Baumann family in Linthal. “Pensées sauvages” has the double meaning of wild pansies and wild thoughts which I found very appropriate, as the Baumanns keeps about 30 cows of the Vosges breed which have average milk yields of just above 3000 l. In the European context where dairy farmers usually need well over a hundred high performance cows to make a living, such figures indeed seem to be a wild idea. But here two generations lived well from this enterprise that creates premium organic Munster cheese, a local specialty that is protected by an Appelation d’Origine Controlée (AOC), a French type of Geographical Indication and can be made only from milk produced in the high meadows of the Vosges.

The Vosges cattle, a once highly threatened local breed, that produces the milk for Munster cheese

Here too there were two generations absolutely loving what they were doing and producing high quality food with happy animals – in a way that seemed against the odds.

Tow generations of the Baumann family enjoy making specialty Munster cheese — Two generations of the Baumann family enjoy making specialty Munster cheese

Some observations:

All three cheese makers were first generation farmers coming from a non-farming background.

All of them seemed to be doing well – their secret being to have built up their own value chains and being in control over it – starting with the feed or access to grazing land to the sale of the premium products.

There did not seem to be a downside – except of course hard work every day of the year. But everybody benefitted: landscape, animals, farmers, quality of food and consumers.

More support – and less bureaucracy – for such kind of enterprises would go a long way towards making the livestock sector more sustainable. In Europe it would enable more people to come back from the cities and revitalize the rural areas. In developing countries this could be a model for generating rural income opportunities and curbing high unemployment rates.

We are convinced of the potential of cheese making – the only question is whether it will work with camel milk in Rajasthan!

12. September 20131. March 2021

Camels make people happy….

While unfortunately not many people seem to care about the rapid vanishing of the camel from Rajasthan’s drylands, the women below certainly do: Their livelihoods depend on it. These women from a village in Jaisalmer district are members of a spinning group that turns camel wool into yarn. The hand spun yarn is subsequently processed into stoles and rugs – and possibly many other specialty items in the future as well.

whats in there — What’s in those sacks and why are these women in an isolated village in the Thar desert so happy? Well, the sacks are filled with spun camel wool and they have just been paid for their work.

Three of them are widows – recognizable from their red gowns and the absence of any jewelry. The number of widows is high in the desert, partly because very young women are often married to rather old men. Widows usually don’t have much too laugh about, as they are totally home bound and dependent on their husband’s relatives for their upkeep (although they are entitled to a small government pension).

Hand-spinning the camel wool with the traditional cherka can be done at home and at leisure.

Spinning the wool with old-fashioned spinning wheels is an activity that can be done in a group and in the confines of one’s home, so it is an ideal occupation.And it creates precious income that the women can control themselves and that empowers them. Although empowerment is relative and will take some time. After all, in some of the villages in the Thar desert, killing of the girl child allegedly is still practiced, although many well-meaning NGOs have tried to stop it.

camel wool comes in a range of different colours and lends itself to "naturally dyed" home furniture items. — Camel wool comes in a range of different colours and lends itself to “naturally dyed” textiles.

But the spinning women are not the only ones that benefit from the camel. The next step in the value chain is the weaver who uses an old and self fashioned groundloom to spin the yearn into dhurries (rugs).

This is weaver Maga Ram – who suddenly has a lot more work to do, due to the revival of interest in camel wool.

These are the “desert pads” that Magaram is weaving – a modern adaptation of the traditional “baql”, the camel wool rugs that the camel nomads carry with them and that they unroll whenever guests are coming.

shearing compressed — Its shearing time! Shearing – which happens at the transition from the cold season to the hot season – is good for camels and keeps them healthy. This picture should have been first, because its a the beginning of the value chain. But this time I wanted to start the story with the women who demonstrate the number of people that can benefit from value addition activities to neglected animal genetic resources.

This if of course only one of the possible value chains based on camel raw materials. Camels, especially the babies and young animals also have very soft fibre that can be made into stoles. Other options are a range of dairy products, soap from camel milk, and the unique and bio-diverse desert paper, made from cellulose pre-processed by our desert friends.

This is desert paper, made from 36 desert trees and shrubs, with a little help from our friends.

Well, all this may seem a little far fetched to livestock experts who have been promoting quantity over quality, leading to the decline of many of India’s local livestock breeds. But we take heart from a recent survey about present and future trends in the fresh food chain in the Netherlands that my colleague Katrien van t’Hooft from Dutch Farm Experiences has been drawing attention to in her blog: The market for niche products is rapidly growing, and this will actually be the main trend in the near future!

21. August 2013

Rescuing a drought resistant sheep breed

Boti sheep - tubular ears — Short tubular ears, a black head and fine carpet wool are characteristic for the Boti sheep – a breed that has never been officially recognized.

Locally adapted livestock breeds are a key resource for adapting to climate change. This is brought home by a recently initiated action research project of Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS) that documents and seeks to save an as yet unregistered sheep breed from the Godwar area in Rajasthan. This is the Boti sheep which is distinguishable by its small tubular ears and black head, as well as its lustrous carpet wool. This breed was described already about ten years ago by a Dutch researcher, Ellen Geerlings, who noted that it was gradually being replaced by another breed, the Bhagli sheep, which grows much faster and is therefore more profitable for meat production. The present survey, supported through the FAO’s funding strategy for the implementation of the Global Plan of Action on Animal Genetic Resources is coming just in time: it is hard to find any original Boti sheep at all, as herders have generally been using Bhagli rams. The breed is literally at the verge of extinction.

Explaining advantages of Boti sheep — Explaining the advantages of the Boti sheep makes Raika herders realise what they are about to loose: a breed that can cope with both disease and climate extremes – be it drought or floods.

However, in conversations with the Raika shepherds, they remember very well the advantages of the Boti sheep especially in terms of drought and disease resistance. They emphasize that the Boti breed can endure pain and even if it suffers from Foot and Mouth Disease or has a thorn in its foot, it will continue walking on three legs, while the Bhagli sheep lies down and dies. The Boti can also cope well with rains and water in its pen, whereas Bhagli requires dry ground or will get sick. The ewes of the breed have a very long life span, giving up to 10 lambs.

Just by talking about these matters, the shepherds seem to start reconsidering their preference for the Bhagli and express the need to again use a Boti ram (which are however now very difficult to find) for improving disease resistance and drought-proofing their flock. When the possibility is raised that they might receive a higher price for the wool, then they get really interested. Wool prices have been so low that they did not even cover the costs of shearing in recent years. However, through the development of niche markets, for instance by creating rugs that contain both Boti wool and “Desert wool” from the local camels, it will hopefully be possible to create financial incentives for keeping Boti sheep.

So, although the initial results of the survey were depressing, it now looks much more hopeful. Value addition is the way to go for saving breeds and creating high value livestock products that appeal to the discerning customer. My next blog will be about our efforts to develop innovative camel products and how this is benefitting women and “poor” people in the Thar desert.

weighing Boti sheep — LPPS staff Khetaram Raika weighing the rare Boti sheep – to try to establish breed descriptors.

14. August 2013

Desert delicacies

desert plenty — The Thar Desert in the rainy season (12th August, 2013): sheep grazing on nutritious bekar grass. The lambs will be exported to the MIddle East, as Northern Indians tend to be averse to mutton. They prefer goat meat.

Deserts are usually cast as bad or inhospitable, something to combat, as the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD) tries to do. People living in deserts are thought to be poor and in need of help from outside. But I think that paradigm is in urgent need of revision. Deserts may experience seasonal material scarcity, but they are also very rich, and not only spritually. Desert dwellers are immensely resourceful and their hospitality is impeccable. They also feed the world’s cities with dairy products and meat. In our Ark of Biodiversity project we have started to accumulate evidence that the nutritional quality of these products is much much better than those produced in industrial systems.

Hanwant Singh, the director of Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS), an NGO working with and supporting Rajasthan’s pastoralist communities, and I are currently experiencing this in Rajasthan’s Thar Desert where we are trying to tie up some of the loose ends of the Jaisalmer Camel Breeders’ Biocultural Protocol. We got way-laid because of heavy rains and stopped overnight at the place of a good friend who also happens to be the president of the Jaislamer Camel Breeder’ Association. We slept outside on cots under the pipal tree. In the morning we were awakened by the clatter of milking pails – the seven or so cows of the family that had assembled right next to us were being milked by our host’s wife and son. It was a gentle scene – the cows letting themselves be hand milked without any restraint, although the calves were present to induce the milk flow. After several buckets had been filled, the cows went for grazing on their own. Only one very old cow, said to be more than 20 years old, stayed behind.

Cow in Sanawra — A very old cow that had recently calved.

This must be one of the most humane and mutually beneficial livestock systems that exists. The cows are habituated to harvest the local desert grasses on their own and willingly share their milk with their keepers. They require hardly any inputs, except a friendly pat and some encouraging words now and then. This production systems runs without medicines, fertilizers, and fossil fuels – not even a shed is required for this system.

Cattle has actually aways been the backbone of human subsistence in this desert, kept by members of all casts and communities. Sheep and goat were rare earlier, as most people were vegetarians. And camel ownership was restricted to the Maharajah and a few wealthy landlords. So cows provided food, manure and draught power.

Our friend, who is in his late fifties, told us in some detail how scarce water had been during his childhood and that guests had not been offered water, but buttermilk, because the latter was more abundant and easier to obtain. He also described how people had lived mostly of buttermilk and ghee and fruits from desert trees. Even bajra – pearl millet – was a rarity.

This traditional food – all natural, home made, and organic – is delicious, as well as healthy. Below is a picture of my breakfast – which kept me going throughout the day.

desert delicacies — Our breakfast and typical delicious and healthy desert meal: freshly churned butter, curd that has soured overnight, and a “sogra” (flat bread made from pearl millet).

17. April 2013

Land and Respect

Salimbhai et al — Nathani from the NGO Saahjeevan, Salimbhai of the Banni buffalo breeders, Bikhabhai of the Rebari camel breeders, Hanwant Singh of LPPS and Dailibai Raika, community leader from Rajasthan, discuss the future of livestock keeping at a recent Seminar on “Green and equitable livestock development in India”. Will their holistic traditional knowledge about the balance between people, livestock and land be respected and taken serious by policy makers?

“Physically we are fine, but our minds are uneasy and disturbed” explains Salimbhai, a Banni buffalo breeder from Gujarat (India) and goes on “we don’t know what the future of our animals will be when we our grazing areas are taken away. It is all a question of access to land whether our animals and we will survive.” He is referring to his community’s ancient resource base, the Banni that is known as Asia’s second largest grassland. It has turned into a hotly contested area which the Forest department is fencing in and subdividing for the purpose of “conservation”. Bhikabhai Rebari, a camel breeding colleague from the same area gently shakes his head “Yes, it’s a big problem – I don’t know how we can continue keeping livestock under these circumstances.”

“The forest needs us to thrive” emphasizes Dailibai Raika from Rajasthan, a seasoned campaigner for Livestock Keepers’ Rights who has travelled the world to speak up on behalf of her community. “Our sheep are essential to keep the grass short, preventing forest fires. By eating fallen leaves, they keep the termites in the forest under control. Our livestock helps the forest to recover as tree seeds that have passed through their stomachs germinate much easier and faster. And our community has protected the forest from poachers and loggers – our mere presence keeps them at bay.” Dailibai lives at the edge of the Kumbhalgarh Sanctuary which is slotted to become a National Park, a development that instills fear into the hearts of the local livestock keepers.

“We need to ensure a balance between land used for crops and land available to livestock. In Maharashtra so much land has been taken over by sugar cane cultivation, there is no more place for livestock. And once livestock is gone, farmers become prone to suicides” pleads Nilkanth Kuruba whose community breeds the famous black Deccani sheep.

At a seminar that the LIFE Network organised on 13th April in Hyderabad (India) the representatives of India’s pastoralist communities expressed both deep worries as well as profound wisdom. With their immense experience, they can provide valuable guidance on how to get livestock development onto a sustainable path – an issue that international agencies are increasingly concerned about. But for that their knowledge needs to be respected and their voices to be heard. This is also the task that the LIFE Network India that was constituted on the next day has set itself. As a collaborative effort between NGOs working on livestock and local breeds, herders’ associations and a small group of supporting scientists, this is an immensely important goal. The proceedings of the meeting will be shared here shortly.

LIFE Seminar group photo — Participants of the LIFE Network Seminar – representing NGOs, livestock keepers and concerned scientists.

17. April 2013

What kind of research helps small-scale livestock keepers?

_IGP2719 — Camels have tremendous potential for improving food and nutritional security, especially in times of climate change. But how can this potential be leveraged? Most camel research has been conducted from the perspective of the rich Gulf countries, but there has hardly been a stab at helping poor livestock keepers in countries such as India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran getting their products to the market and investigating the necessary technologies. Research into small cooling units for camel milk in the field would be sorely needed.

“Better lives through livestock” is the motto of ILRI, the International Livestock Rsearch Institute which recently brought out its second 10 Year Strategy for the period from 2013-2022. This new strategy is much superior to the previous one, as it encompasses a wider range of goals, including food and nutritional security and acknowledges that livestock can also have negative consequences. However, an important angle is missing and that is the question of how this is going to be achieved. What kind of research is necessary to actually addresses this issue?

Lets face it, livestock research in general is rarely conducted from the perspective of supporting small-scale livestock keepers and ecologically sustainable decentralised ways of keeping farm animals. Most of it has been oriented towards increasing quantities of product – more milk, faster meat – in the belief that this would automatically raise poor livestock keepers’ income. Well, this may true in some cases, but in many instances it is not, because the “genetically improved” animals that go along with this approach usually do not perform in the setting in which poor livestock keepers operate. They require inputs in terms of feed and medicine which need to be purchased and which often are not available or draw the farmer into a debt trap, as is indicated in the research study by my colleague Evelyn Mathias entitled “Livestock out of balance. From asset to liability in the course of
the Livestock Revolution“.

In my experience, research should take its cues from the problems as they are experienced by livestock keepers themselves. And these are almost always the same: insecure access rights to land and lack of veterinary services. I have never heard a livestock keeper complain that his or her animals are not productive enough. But I have seen how excited they get when they realise the marketing potential of their animals, as the camel breeders in Rajasthan when they experienced new camel products such as camel ice cream, fashionable camel wool products or even camel dung paper.

Raika camel herder with a notebook crafted out of paper made from camel poo. Probably not the most relevant product for solving the world’s problems, but illustrative of the range of products that is possible.

But sorry, because of my enthusiasm for the camel, I am getting diverted from the mainpoint that I am trying to make: In order to identify research that really helps poor livestock keepers, a dialogue has to be initiated with them to identify their real needs and priorities. For too long, livestock research has been conducted top-down for scientific merit only and based on the wrong assumptions, equating higher output with better income. What we now need is a platform and a process that enables this kind of participatory and bottom-up approach – an approach that reflects consideration of one of the Livestock Keepers’ Rights – “Livestock Keepers shall have the right to participate in the identification of research needs and research design with respect to their genetic resources, as is mandated by the principle of Prior Informed Consent.”

It would really be great if ILRI (and of course all other research institutes working on livestock) looked into establishing such a platform for the interaction between scientists and livestock keepers that will undoubtedy make research more meaningful, targeted and likely to reach its vision of a world where all people have access to enough food and livelihood options to fulfil their potential. We at LPP and the LIFE Network are certainly ready for this!

2. February 2013

So what’s the future role of small-scale livestock-keepers in food production?

Mama and Adam looking into the future — Pastoralist leaders Neelkanth “Mama” Kurbar from **LIFE Network India** and Adam Ole Mwarabu from the LIFE Network in Tanzania look down into the Rift Valley at the side-lines of the Third Multi-stakeholder Platform of the GAA (Global Agenda of Action towards sustainable livestock sector development) recently held in Nairobi.

The future of livestock keeping will have to revolve around finding a balance between economy and ecology. Economically it might make sense to crowd huge numbers of animals in small spaces and automate their feeding and management but this runs counter to all ecological principles: it requires huge amounts of fossil fuels (to grow and transport feed, to climatize stables), it results in accumulations of manure that become difficult or impossible to dispose of (turning dung from a much sought after asset into a liability and threat to the environment), it raises disease pressure (so that routine use of antibiotics becomes essential), and it is problematic from the animal welfare angle. It’s also not good for livelihoods – studies from various countries where the Livestock Revolution has taken hold testify that it results in depopulated rural areas.

Ecologically, decentralised models of livestock keeping as epitomized by pastoralists are much more preferable. They are based on the optimal utilization of locally available biomass and independent of fossil fuels, manure recycling is integrated into the system, disease pressure is small, and animal welfare is almost solved optimally. So why not support these, if we are concerned about the sustainability of the livestock sector?
“But young people don’t want to do this work and prefer to live in the cities” is the argument that is always raised when one suggests that small-scale livestock keeping may be an answer to the sustainability question. There is certainly some truth in it. Many young people are attracted by the urban life, and – by all means – they should be given a chance to go for it. But there are also many youths who find a life taking care of animals preferable to slogging away at menial jobs and a life in slums. So why not encourage these young people, by giving them respect and support, instead of branding them as backward? By directing subsidies towards these ecological livestock production systems instead of the industrialised ones? By building another livestock development paradigm that takes into account the ecological externalities, instead of always comparing the milk yields of the Indian cow with the Israeli cow and automatically concluding that the second one is so much superior?

According to a remarkable presentation by ILRI’s director Jimmy Smith during the third Multi-stakeholder platform meeting of the Global Agenda of Action towards sustainable livestock sector development (GAA), 80% of livestock derived food is still contributed by small producers. If we focus on raising the performance of these systems – for instance through adequate animal health care – and providing incentives for the young generation, then we can solve the livestock sector sustainability question. And we will help address another burning issue – the high unemployment rates that bedevil not only developing countries, but also Europe and the USA – as well.

16. January 20131. March 2021

Jaisalmer Camel Breeders put on record rights and resources

Checking facts and text of the draft document

Jaisalmer is one of the fastest developing districts in Rajasthan , or even India. The once empty desert spaces are now being mined – for wind energy, solar energy, oil, stone, etc. This development if good for some, especially the large corporations behind these activities, but the majority of the local people, with their dependence on livestock keeping are losing out. For this reason, Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan is supporting the Jaisalmer Camel Breeders Association to develop their Biocultural Community Protocol under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. In this they put on record their role in conserving the local camel breeds as well as the associated rangeland biodiversity – many traditional practices exist or existed to conserve the enviornment, but – as is also becoming clear – they are erdoding rapidly and will soon be forgotten. Camel breeding has lost its status and attraction for young people.

A group photo of Rajput, Bishnoi, Muslim, Raika camel breeders.

The process to develop the BCP was already initiated some time ago, but now it was time to check the facts and focus on the essential points. So about 35 camel breeders assembled in the meeting hall of Jaisalmer’s rural development authority and went through the draft document. Many bits and pieces were added, but further checking will be required, as at least seven different castes and communities have a common identity as camel breeders. Each one has a slightly different take on issues.

Hopefully this process will be completed in the next couple of months, so that the BCP can be released and shared with officials and the public at large.

16. December 2012

Biocultural protocols: livestock keepers confirm the importance of this tool

Kutchi camel breeders presenting the results of their analysis about the value of BCPs. Photo by Dipti Desai

Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS) recently organised an experience sharing workshop about Biocultural Protocols for those groups of livestock keepers that have already undertaken such an exercise. So far there are only a handful of them, and the ones that made it to the meeting were the Raika, the Banni buffalo breeders, the Kutchi camel breeders and the Jaisalmer camel breeders. The Kuruba shepherds of Karnataka were also represented by Nilkanth Mama and a colleague.

Nilkanth Mama (“Mama” is a honorific and means maternal uncle in Hindi) from the Kuruba shepherds gets across a point.

While the pastoralists unanimously underlined the importance of BCPs, it was also quite evident that a lot of uncertainty still surrounds the concept and that undertaking the process is by no means easy or fast. It requires time, resources and commitment for it to be of value. Nevertheless, BCPs are a crucial and even essential tool – for groups of marginalised people that traditionally have not attached that much importance to land ownership and are now losing out rapidly. The Raika, for instance, never really tried to claim land rights after Independence, since they believed there was plenty of it and they preferred mobility for their animals, even placing taboos on building permanent houses. Now they are suffering from this ignorance, as Dailibai Raika elaborated.

The incomparable Dailibai Raika – inveterate women leader. Photo by Dipti Desai.

Biocultural Community Protocols were originally conceived in response to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and as the basis for Access and Benefit Sharing agreements with communities. However, they have developed since then and other legal frameworks than the CBD may be even more important reference points – such as the Right to Food.

The essential elements of BCPs are documentation, awareness raising and knowledge about rights under national and international loegal frameworks. How best to implement them, what methodologies to use, how to ensure their integrity – these are the questions that are currently being adressed by various non-government organisations. However, the communities themselves also need to get into the action and push the processes.

Supporting and facilitating this will be a major strategy of LPP and its partners in the near future – because without decentralised small-scale livetsock keepers, livestock keeping will never become sustainable. See the photostory about this subject by Greenshoots and stay tuned about the more detailed report about the BCP Experience Sharing Meeting that will be put on line shortly!

In the meantime more photos by Dipti Desai about the meeting can be seen at this link.

12. November 2012

A bit more respect for livestock keepers, please!

Whose knowledge is more useful? Scientists’ or livestock keepers’?

Recently I had the privilege to attend a “high-level” meeting between ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research and ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute) bureaucrats and scientists. While interaction between such major institutions is important and necessary, I became a bit concerned about the underlying tenor of many of the presentations. For instance there were remarks about farmers/livestock keepers having no concept of animal nutrition and not being able to “calculate rations”. And there is this general attitude of believing that the farmer/livestock keeper is backward, illiterate and in need of guidance by scientists. Well, nothing wrong with science, but how many of the interventions developed by scientists are actually taken off the shelf and being put into use? And, considering that India is not only the largest dairy producer in the world, but also all set to become the global leader in beef exports , must the country’s livestock keepers not be doing many things right? Especially since this development has happened without any noteworthy extension activities, without animal health services reaching the more marginal areas, and without India (yet) becoming dependent on imports of feed stuff from other countries?

In fact, in my view, India’s livestock development trajectory is exemplary, as compared to a country such as China which, in the course of its Livestock Revolution, has become heavily dependent on import of soy and maize to feed its farm animals. This is because India’s non-poultry livestock production is still largely in the hand of small farmers and pastoralists who make optimal use of locally available feed and fodder resources – both crop by-products and natural, very bio-diverse, vegetation – with their indigenous breeds and by means of their extensive experience and willingness to innovate. Let’s ensure that it remains that way – in the interest of national food security, rural employment opportunities and conservation of biodiversity!

In this context, I must applaud the many members of India’s LIFE Network that work on these lines by respecting and highlighting the value of traditional knowledge, rewarding saviours of local livestock breeds and supporting the struggle for continued access to the Commons and for Forest Rights. See, for instance the tireless work of Dr. Balaram Sahu, Vivekanandan of SEVA, Karthikeya of the Senaapathy Kangayam Research Foundation, Hanwant Singh of LPPS, and many many more.

I send my happy Diwali greetings to all of them and wish them all the best in their endeavours that are so crucial for putting livestock development on a sustainable path!