Sustainability of Badri cattle rearing in the hills of Uttarakhand

Abstract

The indigenous cattle of Uttarakhand has become the first registered cattle breed of the state with the name of ‘Badri Cattle’ during 2016. The present study was carried out to assess the sustainability of Badri cattle rearing in the hills of Uttarakhand. Sustainability of Badri cattle rearing was evaluated by measuring 4 indices, i.e. Economic Sustainability Index (ESI), Social Sustainability Index (SSI), Environmental Sustainability Index (EnSI), and Composite Sustainability Index (CSI). Economic sustainability was measured by 6 indicators, viz. production efficiency, net profit, marketing, lactation length, dry period, and calving interval. Social sustainability was measured by 2 indicators, viz. community relation of Badri cattle owners and their access to resource and support services and Environmental sustainability was measured by 4 indicators, viz. animal welfare, dung utilization pattern, waste management and preparedness for disasters. The CSI for each respondent was calculated as mean of the indices. The mean values for ESI, SSI, EnSI and CSI were 0.39±0.09, 0.34±0.21, 0.42±0.11 and 0.38±0.09 respectively. The result revealed that the majority of respondents (41.7–97.5%) had medium level of ESI (0.34–0.66), SSI (0.34–0.66), EnSI (0.34–0.66) and CSI (0.34–0.66) suggesting that Badri cattle rearing is sustainable in the hills of Uttarakhand. Further social participation of the respondents and their formal information source utilization score had a positive and highly significant effect on the sustainability of Badri cattle rearing.