Livestock scenario: current status and future projection of Himachal Pradesh.

摘要

This study was conducted to determine the present status of livestock population, forage production and gap between demand and supply as well as future projections in Himachal Pradesh. The basic information were collected from the secondary sources. The supplementary information was collected by conducting Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). The growth rates of livestock population to project for 2010 were estimated. The livestock population in Himachal Pradesh was 5 221 586. The districtwise analysis showed that the livestock population was highest in Mandi and Kangra and lowest in Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti. The maximum availability of area was observed in Chamba, followed by Kangra, Kullu and Shimia. The average grazing pressure in the state was 1.26 ACU/ha. The demand for fodder on total dry matter basis was 19 837 000 t/annum. Kinnaur, Kullu and Lahaul and Spiti districts had a surplus of fodder supply. The shortage of fodder in the different districts varied from 38 to 67%. About 90% of wheat straw was utilized as dry fodder. The quality of rice straw varied, and selenium content varied from 1.7 to 4.5 ppm, which was higher the limit of 0.5 ppm in fodder. With the development of improved technology and high-yielding varieties of single cut and multicut fodder crops, the fodder production increased by approximately 133.1% from 1984-85 and 2007-08. With the substantial increase in green fodder production and improvement in livestock, the milk production increased from 3.2 million tonnes in 1980-81 to 9.7 million tonnes in 2005-06, which helped in promoting the dairy industry. The encouraging response of the government towards the dairy industry, keen interest of dairy farmers, agricultural scientists and dairy industry were expected and might be helpful in achieving the target fixed for 2020 to remove the gap between the availability and requirement of green fodder by increasing the productivity per unit area per unit time to supply green fodder from 21 to 40-50 kg/head/day.