Beyond economic motives: Value of indigenous dairy cattle breed for the livestock keepers in India

Abstract

Indigenous cattle not only provide milk, dung and draught power but are also a crucial part of India’s ecologicaland cultural heritage. Despite this, they are facing threat of extinction. Absence of information regarding theirmultiple roles and monetary estimates of the benefits, obstructs the investment for their conservation. Currentstudy attempts to assess the economic value of different benefits of one of the best indigenous cattle breeds ofIndia, Sahiwal. Choice experiment was used for collecting primary data from 168 dairy farmers which was thenanalyzed using random parameter logit model. ʽCultural valueʼ of Sahiwal occupied the major share (29.93%) oftotal economic value followed by ʽindirect use value (21.25%)ʼ and ʽexistence value (18.40%)ʼ. Interestingly, shareof ʽdirect consumptive use valueʼ was comparatively lower. This indicates that any decision on conservation takensolely on the basis of direct consumptive use value is unlikely to maximize the societal welfare. Development ofspecific market for milk and milk products of Sahiwal, promotion of the breed as symbol of peace and unity throughvarious cultural and heritage parks, and revival of organic farming can incentivize the Sahiwal rearing farmers whichcan then supplement the conservation efforts of the government