Impact of livestock interventions and efficient management for higher income and livelihood security in Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Farmer FIRST project entitled “Integrated approaches for food, nutrition and livelihood security of rural households in Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh” has been undertaken to enhance farmers’ income through adoption of integrated farming system. Under this project, after problem identification, suitable interventions were formulated and implemented in four villages of Fatehpur district to achieve sustainable economic development and increased nutritional security of the farm families. The data was collected from 215 farmers for different aspects of socioeconomic profile of the rural households in project area. The average age percentage of the young farmers was 20.93 compared to middle aged farmers of47.44 per cent who were involved in the livestock's farming. The large numbers 148 (68.83%) of small farmers were involved. The stall feeding + grazing was adopted by more than 53.02 per cent of the farmers in selected villages. The animals were fed average 5 kg of green fodder per animal per day in rabi and summer seasons, however, in Kharif quantity of greens was found to be the 20–22 kg. Dry fodder fed to the animals ranges between 4–10 kg per day and concentration was 1–1.5 kg per animal per day in different seasons. The average milk production is 05.00 liter per animal per day. Monthly income from goat milk was ₹843.95 which increased to ₹1,366.43. The price of goat milk was ₹50/L at the project villages. Annual income from milk was ₹3,375.80 which increased to ₹5,465.71. Thus, through integration of different intervention like livestock's and crop production in farming systems, it is possible to increase the farmers’ income through better utilization of crop residue, inter linkages, generating employment, utilization of animal by product in crop production.