Livestock Marketing and Supply Chain Management of Livestock Products

Abstract

India witnessed an impressive demand-led growth of over 4 per cent in its livestock sector in the past four decades. This cushioned agricultural growth, helped reduce poverty and improve food and nutritional security. And, for the past two decades or so, India has retained its distinction of being the largest producer of milk in the world, and lately it has emerged as the largest exporter of bovine meat, mainly buffalo meat. Milk is now the largest agricultural commodity in both physical and value terms. Rising incomes, fast growing urban population, and globalisation of agri-food markets are opening up new opportunities for faster growth of livestock sector. Nonetheless, these are being accompanied by a complex set of challenges including producers’ access to technologies, markets - financial and non-financial services. Markets for live animals and their products have remained unorganised and fragmented even after decades of economic development. The small-scale producers who contribute around 70 per cent to total livestock production are constrained to establish market linkages with processors/marketing firms. For example, about 60 per cent of the milk produced in the country is marketed, of which only 25 per cent is procured by co-operatives and private processors, and the rest reaches the consumers through various informal channels. Livestock products are perishable and need to be transported immediately to the consumption centres or converted into less perishable forms, but the processing, storage and refrigerated transport is underdeveloped. It is therefore essential to develop value chains for livestock products. The choice of ‘Livestock Marketing and Supply Chain Management of Livestock Products’ as one of the themes for the discussion in the 74th Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics is intentional as not much research has been undertaken in India to understand the markets and supply chains of animals and animal products, in terms of chain activities and actors, governance structures, performance and inclusiveness. In all, the Society received 22 research articles that attempted at addressing various issues related to marketing and supply chains of livestock and livestock products. For the sake of brevity, the salient findings reported in these pieces of research have been organised and presented under the following sub-themes: (i)