Socio-Economic Gaints

Socio-Economic Gaints

The socio economic importance of goats in India is evident by the sharp increase in their numbers and contributions during the last about 30 years. Goats contribute milk, meat, fiber, skins and manure to the subsistence of small holders and landless rural poor. They play an important role in capital storage income and employment generation and house hold nutrition .Important of goats lies in the fact that human population is increasing very rapidly creating increasing demands for animal protein foods on the hand and the feed resources large ruminants are decreasing due to shrinkage of grazing lands on the other .This demands can, therefore be met with by increasing population of goats. It is easier to increases the population of goats than cattle and buffaloes because the capital investment is relatively low, land requirement are small, reproductive rates are higher both due to shorter breeding intervals and high prolificacy and they can be management skills. There is much less risk in goat farming in drought prone areas where large mortality occurs due to frequent droughts. The goats act as an insurance against disaster under pastoral and agriculture subsistence system. Goats have religious and ritualistic importance in India. They are offered as sacrificial animals both by Muslims on Eid and by Hindus epically the worshippers of goddess kali. They are worshipped for their creative and generative powers and sexual virility. There are no religious taboos against consumption of goat meat .Goat meat is preferred over other meat as it is leaner. Goat milk is easily digestible because of small size fat globules. It has much less allergic problems than the milk of other livestock species. It also has medicinal value and can ward off many diseased as the goats browse on variety of plants including medicinal ones .Goats can be milked as often as the required and are therefore called moving refrigerator .The goat skins are highly valued and have large export potential. The value addition in goat skins processing is much larger than other products. The bones of slaughtered and dead goats are also utilized for bone meal manufacture. A Goat produced 150 kg of dry manure per year for use in crop production and gardening. Goat browsing accelerates growth of trees, shrubs and surface vegetation. They also act as seeding machine. The result of a socio economic survey in Rajasthan conducted have revealed that the number of goats increased 3 times between 1951- 1983 and goats accounted for 28 – 31 % of the value of the livestock assets and for 16-19% of the gross receipts from crops and livestock .Some studies have revealed that the goats contributed up to 50-55% to the total cash income of a farm family in the hot arid region of the country. There are growing thing scientific evidences to suggest that goat keeping is more economical. It is thus evident that goats make very sizeable economic contributions to the economy of India.

All the improved technologies reached the urban populace seeing this as a lucrative option, even the educated urbanites developed commercial goat into a successful. Agri – business .On the contrary those in the rural areas rearing traditional goat small flocks (i.e. 1-10 goat per household) for ages remained more or less with minimal or no development goat for the rural families is like a ‘Reserved Bank’ to fall back upon in emergencies and yet they constantly live in a fear losing the entire ‘bank balance’ when a disease out break occurs. A systematic and planned development of Goats thus holds a tremendous potential for growth in rural areas.

Improvement of animal genetic resources has been globally accepted and recommended for development of a global animal genetic resource .With the objective of identifying the breading tract geographical and demographical distribution proper genetic evaluation in terms of morphological traits production potential and reproductive status of various indigenous breeds of livestock (goat). Hence a proper strategy must be developed which should be specially considered in bread characterization conversation and improvement programmers.

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