Temporal Analysis of Livestock Production and Exports and its Significance for Food Security

Abstract

Background: Livestock provides diverse food and non-food products, supports rural households along with serving as a secondary source of income for small and marginal farmers. Livestock aids in food production, enriches soil fertility and supply raw material to various industries. Livestock directly contributes to nutritional security by providing essential proteins and micronutrients, preventing under-nutrition and deficiencies.This paper delves into the changing scenario of India’s livestock sector by examining production, export patterns of livestock products and the role of livestock in food and nutritional security. Methods: Available secondary data on production of livestock products in India have been divided into four sub periods: sub period-I (1980-81 to 1989-90), sub period-II (1990-91 to 1999-00), sub period-III (2000-01 to 2009-10) and sub period-IV (2010-11 to 2021-22) and have been analyzed along with export data covering the period 1991-2021 andpopulation data from first livestock census (1951) after independence to 20th livestock census (2019). Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) using trend equation and instability index using Cuddy Della Valle Index has been worked out for the data. Result: Production of egg, milk and meat has shown consistent growth of around 6%, 5% and 8%, respectively over the past five decades with low to moderate overall instability (~8-21%). But wool production has turned negative in the last two decades despite India being the world’s third-largest sheep population. The growth in exports of dairy and meat products has gained momentum after globalization with a significant overall growth rate of 10.37% and 7.10% for the period under study. But in terms of instability dairy exports are more volatile (68.11%) compared to meat products (30.39%). Exports of poultry products showed negative growth rates with the highest instability (86.77%) over the entire study period.