EMERGING CHANGES IN LIVESTOCK EXTENSION SERVICES TO FARMING COMMUNITY IN OPEN ECONOMY OF INDIA

First Author

D ThirunavukkarasuLivestock Extension Specialist39/1. II nd floor,Red Hills Road, AmbatturChennai –53Tamil Nadu – 600 053

Email ID: dthirunavukkarasu@gmail.com

Second Author

N K SudeepkumarAssociate ProfessorDepartment of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry Extension and EntrepreneurshipMadras Veterinary CollegeChennai, Tamil Nadu – 600 007India

Email ID: sudeep66@hotmail.com

AbstractAgriculture in India is characterized by a symbiosis of crop and livestock. Animal husbandry contributes around 6 to 7 per cent of the gross domestic product. Livestock rearing has been the single major activity to provide supplementary employment and income to small, marginal and landless farmers who form the major section of the farming as well as rural community. This section of community is major part of vulnerable section of India. Recent trade polices and liberalization in livestock sector has brought out completely new environment for the farming community, and the livestock extension educational services was not an exceptional. The participation of private and cost recovery by the cooperatives and animal husbandry departments has been encouraged systematically. This in turn shifts the livestock extension focus from information as public good to “commercial good”, denial of access to livestock information for subsistence farming, degrading environment through promoting industrialization of livestock farming. The crop husbandry, which was a major supporter of livelihood, has already been crippled due to open market, debts, lack of extension services and / or pro corporate services. Thus emerging changes in livestock extension along with other factors are likely to aggravate the existing farming crisis.

Background of Livestock Husbandry

Agriculture in India is characterized by a symbiosis of crop and livestock husbandry. Animal

husbandry contributes around 6 to 7 per cent of the Gross domestic product (GDP). Milk continues

to top farm commodities in terms of its contribution to the national economy, which is higher than

that of paddy and wheat (Kolli and Kulshreshtha, 1997 and Sharma 2004). On other hand the small

ruminant rearing contributes around 24 billion rupees (Approximately 45 rupees makes one US

dollar) per annum to rural economy (Conference of state ministers of animal husbandry and dairy

development, Agenda notes, Dec, 2004). Small and marginal farming community posses two-third

of milch animals (Taneja and Brithal, 2005) while most of the small ruminants are with marginal and

landless farming community. This section of community is a major part of the vulnerable section of

the rural community and is one of the important occupations of the rural women who are still more

vulnerable.

The above section of community has been brought under open economy. In the last fifteen years the

central and state governments under the guidelines of donor agencies started to restructure the

government services and livestock services was not an exceptional. The emerging changes (structural

reforms) and new trade polices of open economy has brought out new environment for the farming

community. In addition the policy makers, researchers and scholars are debating in favor of

privatization of agricultural extension and also working out ways and means the same in the fields.

The campaigners for privatization stated to mobilize support by quoting low efficiency, quality of

services and lack of funds as the compelling reasons private participation and cost recovery

mechanisms in public sector. In this background access / right to relevant information and new

knowledge on various aspects of livestock husbandry is essential to day today decision-making

process on livestock farming issues becomes more complex. This background necessitates us look

into the existing livestock extension educational systems to farming community and emerging

changes. In this situation the paper attempts to bring out the changes and also forecasts the possible

outcomes in future too.

CURRENT LIVESTOCK EXTENSION EDUCATIONAL SERVICES DELIVERY SYSTEM AND EMERGING TRENDS

State level animal husbandry departments and their grass root level organizations - Livestock

extension service is a mandate of the state level animal husbandry departments. State animal

husbandry departments throughout the country have 7,415 veterinary hospitals/polyclinics,

14,573 veterinary dispensaries, 23,682 veterinary aid and 43,782 Artificial Insemination (AI)

centers spread out widely through out the country to carry out various activities of the

departments (Sasidhar and Chandel, 2003). In general this department has at its apex has the

directorate of animal husbandry at state level, while it has a veterinary dispensary at panchayat

union level (headquarter for cluster of villages / hamlets) and further down has animal breeding

centers / sub centers which covers few villages. At the district level the deputy director / joint

director is responsible for animal husbandry activities and at grass root level veterinarians and

para staff represent the animal husbandry departments. Currently more than 10000 cattle unit

heads needs to be taken care by one veterinarian (Sudeepkumar, 1999) against the

recommendation of per 5000 cattle unit per head (National commission on Agriculture, 1976).

Similar conditions exist in case of supporting staffs (para staffs). As per the job chart,

veterinarians need to carry out regular services such as treatment, breeding, record keeping,

administrative works and extension activities with the support of para staff. But with this work

load the probability of carrying out extension activities become limited (Sudeepkumar, 1999).

On the other hand under the guidelines of donor agencies (World bank, International Monitory

Fund, Asian development bank etc) structural policy changes in government makes state

governments reluctant to recruit new human resources in place of existing vacancies and for the

last few years there was no new recruitments of human resources and they were in tempo of

privatization of various services including extension services. For example as per Orissa state

livestock policy, the extension will be restructured to promote convergent approach involving

various technical training, the financial service organization, delivery of quality services at the

doorstep moving from free services to payment for quality and timely services. This can be said

as initiation of privatization on extension from complete free service to cost recovery.

Secondly the budget allotted to extension services very limited (Morton et al, 1997). This fact

holds good now also. Pondicherry animal husbandry department spends around 2.6 per cent of its

total expenditure in 2002-03 while the adjoining state Tamil Nadu has spent 0.04 per cent in

2003-04 of total departmental budget. Central and state government in the past allocated

inadequate funds for agricultural research programmes and public sector extension services of

crop and animal husbandry, which has now collapsed with further cuts in allocation of budget by

the central and state governments during the last decade (Anonymous 2001, Anonymous 2004

and Birthal and Jha, 2005). Along with other factors low budgeting reflects the whole extension

system. The current extension system lacks human resources, infrastructure and adequate

financial support (Bhat and Das, 2002, Ravikumar and Mahesh 2006) and provides inferior

services and meager attention on small ruminant livestock extension (Conference of state

ministers of animal husbandry and dairy development, Agenda notes, Dec, 2004) was being

reported. On other hand government slowly withdrawing from the services under structural

change programmes where further funding becomes a question mark. All this put together

hampers and will continue to hamper the livestock extension activities from the departments.

The “National project for cattle and Buffalo breeding” programme of central government

directing state governments to privatize breeding services (structural change in breeding services

was brought out by the government of India with the guidelines of Swiss development

cooperation- SDC and Intercooperation – an international non-governmental organization, Weiser

et al, 2000) through autonomous institutions such as Andhra pradesh livestock development

agency (APLDA), Tamilnadu Livestock development agency etc. The new service providers

operate under the principle of cost recovery for their services. These initiatives were already

playing role in dissemination of information on breeding and other related topics. This in turn

results in the new batch of stakeholders (private individuals / companies /agents /semi

government institutes) who likely engage in livestock extension along with breeding services.

Currently 26 states have been brought under this project (Conference of state ministers of animal

husbandry and dairy development, Agenda notes, Dec, 2004). Since this stakeholder works on the

principle of cost recovery and maximization of profit, the farmer may end up in paying extension

services direct or indirectly.

Thus the extension services provided by state governments departments were suffering with

budget and human resource limitations. This in turn reflects in poor performance at the filed

levels. Instead of correcting the existing lacunae in the system the services are subcontracted out

or subjected to cost recovery from farmers who are already resource poor.

Producer’s cooperative societies – Producer cooperatives for milk, sheep and poultry were

established in order to free the farming community from the clutches of middleman. In a long run

only the Milk producer’s cooperative societies (MPCS) were sustained while the Sheep breeders

cooperatives and poultry cooperatives failed. The failure may be due poor interest among the

farmers. In addition rapid industrialization of poultry sector (both broiler and egg production) and

the entry of contract farming may contributed to the inactiveness of poultry cooperatives. Now

there some attempts by the non-governmental and developmental organizations to bring up the

cooperatives in sheep and poultry sector. The dairy cooperatives, which survive over decades,

operate through three-tier structures (State level-federation, district level-Union Village level –

MPCS). Dairy cooperatives carry out dairy extension services as part of their mandate. The

federation apex body at the state level has a centralized publications unit, which produces

extension materials based on the problems encountered in the fields of union. At the district level

the union organizes exposure visits, audiovisual shows, distribution of extension materials

through Milk Producer’s Cooperative Societies (MPCS) and establishes demonstration units on

dairy and fodder. The MPCS are the grass root level organization of the dairy cooperatives and

receive backend support from the dairy unions and state level federations. In turn the state

federations and unions get support from National dairy development board (NDDB). On

comparison with crop producer cooperatives and other stakeholders in extension (agriculture,

state agricultural universities, NGOs) has better contact intensity and manpower for extension

activities. (Sulaiman and Sadamate, 2000). But still they are able to cover only 20 per cent of the

total milk production of the country.

But recent developments in dairy cooperative sector especially the conversion of dairy

cooperatives to more autonomous institutions makes them function as like to private business

house with a limited support from government. Under Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided

Cooperative Societies Act-1995, the diary cooperatives in Andhra Pradesh province became

autonomous and the support of central and state becomes scanty. Currently six milk unions in the

above state start operate on their own without any support from state federation. They are

operating on complete recovery mechanisms. Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh

are few states following Andhra Pradesh model (Parthasarathy, 2002). Thus cooperatives are

passing on the cost of dairy extension services to farming community. In this background dairy

unions were started to charging the dairy farming community for the extension services

(Chapman and Tripp, 2003). In coming days cooperative sectors are expected to fall in similar

lines and the cost of dairy extension services would eventually fall on shoulders of dairy farmers.

Veterinary / agricultural educational institutes and their substations – The prime agenda of the

veterinary and agricultural universities are three folds namely education, producing skilled human

resources, research and extension services. These universities addresses livestock and fodder re-

lated extension activities through associated bodies. These bodies are principally Extension and

communication departments, regional stations, KVK (Krishi vigyan Kendra) and Agricultural

Technology Information Center (ATIC- a single window system of delivering for agriculture and

liestock information and various inputs) and farmers training centers. The Extension and Commu-

nication department along with Directorate of Extension of the university provides training, con-

ducts postal courses, and produces mass media programmes on livestock husbandry. But activi-

ties of these institutes were restricted to a limited number of local areas (Sulaiman and Van den

Ban, 2003). Generally the KVK operates under the guidelines of the local agricultural / veterinary

sciences university. But some NGOs also operate KVKs, under the guidelines of ICAR. One of

the mandates of KVKs is to update extension personnel on emerging advances in research and or-

ganize vocational training programmes on various rural livelihood options for the farming com-

munity mainly the rural youth.

The government support for these institutes continue to reduce, resulting in working out cost re-

covery mechanisms for its educational services. Under this background the supplementary activi-

ties does not like to get any more attention. This in turn forces the universities to convert the ex -

tension services as paid service. The publications that are brought to farmers are now sold at vari -

ous outlets.

Private industries- In poultry sector the private industries / corporate houses play a predominant

role. They work with poultry farming community under various levels of production. And their

relation also varies. In broiler farming a high degree of contract farming starting from supply of

day old chick to procurement of marketable broiler and selling to final consumer exists (ie from

hatchery to dinning table). But in case of egg production private companies participate at differ-

ent levels. The companies engaged in contact farming or supplying of inputs or procurement of

outputs play major role in dissemination of poultry information. Contract companies, hatcheries,

feed manufactures, drug producers through their representatives or marketing agents push up the

information for increased business turn out in favor of the firm. They carry out the information

dissemination through direct contacts and mass media.

Implementation of Milk and Milk products order 1992 (MMPO 1992) and later amendments re-

sulted in MMPO resulted in opening of dairy sector for organized private sector participation.

This resulted in entry of organized private dairies on a large scale under contract system. Well

Known examples are Nestle, Smithline, Hindustan Lever, Heritage and Hatsun Agro Limited. These

corporate houses operate with farming community through a contract agreement. They provide a

variety of input services to dairy members, including dairy extension (Thirunavukkarasu and

Sudeepkumar, 2005). These private dairies organize mass contact programmes such as animal

health camps, dairy educational tours and also publish a number of printed materials on dairy

husbandry. Similar to poultry sector the dairy feed companies are also started to push the infor-

mation through direct contacts and mass media. Drug and vaccine companies organize similar

type of activities with the support of their marketing people and local sales agents and also partic-

ipate in agricultural exhibitions in order to create awareness on their products.

In recent years the government is reluctant to invest in livestock sector and intensive promotion

of private investment has resulted in entry of corporate such as Charoen Pokphand, Hindustan

lever and expansion existing livestock related companies to various sub sectors of livestock field

(Example- Venkey an Indian monopoly in poultry sector expanding from hatchery business to

vaccines and contract farming). This all indicates in coming days, more intensive participation

from business houses likely to take place in this sector. Private / corporate participation pushes

(corporate pro in formation to the farming community rather than rational information on new

livestock technologies and innovations) its own commercial interest information resulting in

hardship to farming community and risk to the environment in the long run. The character of in-

formation has already started to take “U” turn from pro poor to corporate pro (from information

to advertisement)

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and others – In general the role of NGOs in livestock

extension and other livestock services were limited to few geographical areas. But in recent years

the NGOs participation in livestock sector has increased. On their own interest many NGOs

started to participate in this sector. Additionally various state governments stated to sub contract

various livestock services to NGOs. It can be recollected from the initiation of DANIDA (Danish

international development agency) and Tamil Nadu animal husbandry department collaborated

programme, which invoved in enwrapping NGOs to create a pool of private extension workers.

The popular NGOs engaged in these activities were BAIF (Bharathiya Agro industrial federation)

Anthra, JK Gram Vikas Yogana trust and Pradan etc. These NGOs work on development of

community based animal health workers and inseminators. These para staff also takes care of

disseminating information on various livestock issues. Some of the NGOs provide their service

on cost basis, while others provide it as a social service. The NGOs activity on livestock sector

does not seem to stop just here. According to Ahuja (2004) the NGOs activity in this filed

organizes and mobilizes the latent market demand for animal health services. This means in

future, the NGOs will facilitate consolidation and organization of livestock services for private

participation or NGOs on its own will mature as a private party. This all together will end up in

adding cost burdens for farming community and when private players come into the scene with

the support of NGOs corporate pro messages will be in the forefront.

Some freelance publications include study materials for livestock farmers in the local language.

The local newspaper “Eenadu” in Andhra Pradesh and “Dinamalar” in Tamilnadu provinces has a

regular agricultural section in it. Currently in many of the local languages farmer’s magazine are

also available. The elite group of farming community mostly utilizes it. Their reach to common

man is limited. While the central ministry and national institutes namely National dairy research

institute, Indian veterinary research institute and other ICAR institutes on livestock and fodder

and their sub stations organize various training programmes on livestock issues for farmers and

supporting staffs of cooperatives and animal husbandry departments. But the number of pro-

grammes directly to farmers is limited and their extension advisory services are limited to the lo -

cality of the institute. On the other hand animal husbandry wing on animal husbandry, Ministry of

Agriculture had (1992 –93) a budget of 200 million rupees to sponsor state institutes to organize

extension programme. But in general they don’t engage in any direct extension activities.

Recent Initiatives

ATMA (Agricultural Technology management Agency) and Agriclinics – Agricultural

Technology management Agency is being implemented in 7 states of India as one of the new

extension innovations after Training & Visiting system. This initiative at state level has working

groups coordinating various departments of agriculture including animal husbandry departments

and state agricultural and /or veterinary universities while at district level similar working groups

are set with their representatives of the above institutes. At a lower level it has farm information

and advisory centers, which has established links and formed various sub committees with

representation from farmers and community-based organization. The Farmer information center

has an agricultural extension officer, livestock extension officer and horticultural extension

officer. This whole new initiative in extension attempts to cover all activities under an umbrella

to give a single window for extension system and also works out model for complete cost

recovery mechanisms. One of the aims of ATMA programme is to recover partial or complete

cost of extension services through a phased manner. In coming days the ATMA may work on

cost recovery through directly /indirectly charging the farming community.

The government of India, under the ministry of agriculture and NABARD (National bank for

agriculture and rural development) initiated new concept called agri-clinics to privatize livestock

services including livestock extension along with agriculture. The main objective of the

programme was to provide input services including extension services to farming community

through private individuals / groups. Under this initiative veterinary clinic and two feed units has

been established throughout the country. Since agriclinic is owned by the individuals (private)

they are charging for whatever service they provide to the livestock farming community.

Information technology based village information centers - On the other hand Information

Technology is emerging as a media in rural areas. Development VSAT and corDECT technology

made the Internet connectivity easier and cheaper to the rural India. This type of technology facil -

itates easy access rural market (Prahalad and Hart, 2002) and also facilitates organizing contract

farming / procurement of primary goods. Corporate houses such as ITC (Indian Tobacco com-

pany), HLL (Hindustan lever limited) and MSSL (Malobika Ghatak, 2002) were tapping the rural

market opportunity through IT innovations in India. ITC alone has reached out to more than 2.4

million farmers in 21,000 villages and six states through 4,100 e-Choupals, which are IT based

rural village information and service centers of ITC (Anonymous 2004). While Hindustan Lever

limited has started to experiment in its iSakthi project by selling its veterinary drugs with support

of Andhra Pradesh eSeva (IT based rural village Information and service centers) centers. In this

background the government of India started to pool the efforts of above stakeholders into India

Vision 2007 multi stakeholders project. This aims to bring out IT based village knowledge infor-

mation centers for more than half a million villages with in few years. Emerging of IT in the rural

backdrop as a new medias is likely to play predominant role in agriculture and livestock exten-

sion. These trends are likely to give an upper hand to private sector and result in advancement of

knowledge in livestock sector as a saleable commodity rather being a public good.

Impact on livestock farming community

Firstly it is necessary understand the background of livestock production in the open economy.

The Central and state governments are vigorously implementing globalization. Opening of the

economy, dismantling of quantity restrictions and reduction of import tariff on various livestock

products has started slowly bringing out changes in livestock products market. The international

brands are starting to replace the Indian dairy products in local market. The dumping of milk

products by New Zealand and Denmark has resulted in sharp decline of ghee prices (Sharma,

2002). In coming days with dismantling the left over restrictions on import and paving the way

for the subsidized dairy and meat products will throw more uncertainties. In the export front the

Indian products are unable to make much impression in the international market against highly

subsidized livestock products of developed countries. The entry of Nestle (Swiss), Sodiaal

(France), Schreiber (USA), Bongrain (France), Lactalis (France) Rabo (Holland) and Fonterra

(New Zealand) corporate in the Indian dairy sector (Jeremiah, 2004) and expansion of corporate

farming is in the forefront. Similar trends in poultry also noticed. Thus the subsistence farming

are being exposed to more vulnerable situations.

The subsistence livestock farming which needs stronger intervention through government live-

stock services are being exposed to removal of existing meager subsidies, privatization and cost

recovery mechanisms through reduction in role of public sector. Due to this the cost of inputs

such as the feed and fodder, breeding services, veterinary services, preventive measures and drugs

are increasing. This all-together increase the cost of milk production per kilogram is around 10

rupees (Hemme et al, 2003) for a landless dairy farmer. Thus emerging uncertainties in market

for Indian livestock products both locally as well internationally seen.

In the above background in the name of “bringing investment” promoting the private and or

corporate in livestock sector leads to informal or formal entry in livestock extension activities.

While the IT for rural development further supports them in establishing their activities. The

existing public services systems, which are under staffed, poor and inefficient, either working to

get out from this job. This all put together will promote corporate pro information,

industrialization of livestock farming and finally throw out small farming communities out of

business.

Conclusion

The participation of private and cost recovery / completing getting out from the assigned job by

the cooperatives and animal husbandry departments will shift the livestock extension from

“Information as public good to commercial good”. This will eventually lead towards of denial

information of free access to livestock information for subsistence farming, degrading

environment through industrializations of livestock farming and ignoring public health and

human hazards. Finally it may end up in break down of relation between the extension workers

and research community in public sector.

The crop husbandry, which was major supporter of livelihood, has been crippled in open market,

debts and lack of extension services. Similar threats are being exposed to livestock farming,

which has been acting as a buffer or as livelihood options during crop and market failures. Thus

emerging changes in livestock extension along with other factors are further likely to aggravate

the agrarian crisis leaving over two-third of Indian farming community who are landless,

marginal and small farmers in jeopardize.

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