About goat

Sihori

Jamunapari

Barbari

STATUS AND PROSPECTS OF COMMERCIAL GOAT FARMING IN INDIA

Goats play an important role in the rural economy at national level. More than 70 percent of the landless agricultural laborers, and marginal and small farmers of the rural India rear them.
The rural poor who cannot afford to maintain a cow or a buffalo find goat/ sheep as the -best alternative source of supplementary income and milk. This is one reason why poor rural households maintain a few number of goats.
This trend of commercialization in goat production deriving entrepreneurs looking for higher productivity and profitability seems desirable. More commercialization would encouraged Intensification of goat production hitherto highly extensive system depending only on grazing in degraded common lands. Commercialization might not only help in increasing the productivity of goats by having better access to critical inputs and technical knowledge, but may also relieve some pressure from the grazing lands. Animals in commercial production system would have to depend on alternative sources of fodder like agro-forestry, tree leaves and partial/ complete stall-feeding reducing the dependency on common grazing lands.
Therefore along with the extensive production system, the trend of commercialization of goat enterprise needs to be encouraged. Intensification and commercialization of goat enterprise is also important because of shrinking of resources for extensive grazing. Commercialization will help in it increasing the goat productivity to some extent and bridging the demand-supply gap. It seems to be a better option for increasing productivity and production from goats, but it will have its own associated problems and challenges like high incidence of diseases in large flocks, if not managed properly. The losses due to diseases and parasites could be minimized by using recommended preventive goat health calendar and management practices.

Major Components of goat farming :-