Trends in Small Ruminant Production

Introduction

Two third of world's population live in Asia below the poverty line and more than 65% of them are poor livestock keepers earning their livelihood from the small ruminant sector.

Significantly quantifiable organised research has been carried out in our country in the small ruminant sector by various non-governmental organisations and government research institutes which are well documented and presented at various platforms. However, the small ruminant farmers, especially the landless and marginal category, are solely dependent upon livestock resources and are rarely benefited by the developed technologies.

The basic characteristics of sheep and goat husbandry in India largely depend upon common property resources, herbage produced particularly during the monsoon season, and vegetation left after harvesting the crops. The changing land utilization pattern and climatic conditions, in general, further affect feed resource availability and small ruminant production in particular.

Since crop production is a gamble of the monsoon and often fails in the semi-arid and arid regions of the country, livestock farming—especially sheep and goat husbandry—provides the basic livelihood and sustenance to a major portion of the human population.

It was thus felt that we need to assess and retrospect the causes of non-adoption of our technologies under field conditions and further how best the developed technologies need to be modified to suit, percolate, and be applied to a greater extent for the improvement of small ruminant productivity.

Keeping in view this objective, the National Seminar with the theme titled, “Prospects and Retrospect of Small Ruminant and Rabbit Production: Contribution to Socio-economic Security”, was organized under the auspices of the Indian Society for Sheep and Goat Production and Utilization (ISSGPU) and Central Wool Development Board (CWDB), Jodhpur, at Jaipur. Various expert resource personnel like field workers, NGOs, technocrats, and researchers were invited to address the issue from the right perspective.

They discussed, contributed, and presented their findings in a very scientific manner, which can be further a useful tool for taking up future strategies and modifying programs. It was felt that this valuable information would be very useful if compiled into a book, and an initiative was started to do so.

About the Book

The current book entitled, “Trends in Small Ruminant Production: Perspectives and Prospects”, contains _____ chapters covering the national scenario of small ruminant husbandry, current production levels and the country’s requirements, current research trends and findings related to production, reproduction, feeding, breeding, health of small ruminants and rabbits, and utilization and value addition of their produce (meat, milk, wool).

It also discusses how best these technologies can be implemented under the current small ruminant rearing systems to achieve better productivity from native and upgraded germplasm, and how this can improve the socio-economic status and livelihood of farmers.

This book provides insights into future research directions to meet the demand and supply gap in terms of milk, meat, and wool production.