LANDLESS LIVESTOCK FARMING
“A country rich in livestock is never poor and country poor in livestock is never rich”
- Arabian proverb
The implementation of Operation Flood brought about a “White Revolution” in India with quantum jump in milk production.A notable feature of Operation Flood was the extent to which opportunities to benefit from the dairy programme were successfully extended to millions of small-scale men and women farmers, largely through the establishment of an extensive system of Dairy Co-operative Societies. The scale of this aspect of the operation is truly remarkable, and it has been estimated that over 9 million farmers (of which 70% are resource poor) were part of an integrated system of some 75000 village Dairy Co-operative Societies. One of the great successes of Operation Flood was its contribution to the lives of millions of India’s most poor and vulnerable households. Its impact on the livelihoods of the poor can be seen in the creation of urban employment at milk processing plants, but more significantly in the new income opportunities provided to rural households throughout the country derived from sale of milk.
One of the more intriguing aspects of the “White Revolution” has been how benefits from developments in the Dairy Industry have accrued not only to small-scale and marginal farmers but also to landless families. Usually, direct access to pasture is seen as an integral aspect of the management of any livestock production system. The emergence of landless dairy producers in urban, peri-urban and rural areas is a story that is largely untold.
It is estimated that, at present 60 to 70 per cent of the fluid milk requirements of the urban areas is derived from cattle maintained within the municipal limits. These cattle are generally kept in insanitary and congested conditions, which affect their health, milk performance and breeding capacity. They are also a source of nuisance to the surrounding residential area. A majority of these animals when they become dry are sent to the slaughter house. Maintaining cattle in this manner is uneconomic and is a drain on the cattle wealth of the country.
The plan would include removal of cattle from urban areas, a measure highly desirable both from the standpoint of public health and the conservation of the cattle-wealth of the country. Providing facilities for settling them in villages around the cities may rehabilitate the dislodged cattle and their owners.
This broad objective remained for some time. Indeed, one of the aims of Phase I of Operation Flood was to displace urban-based milk production by making it uneconomical through the enhancement of low-cost rural production. However, this objective was dropped in Phase II and Phase III of Operational Flood once it was realized that the comparative advantage of urban-based milk producers meant that they had a key role to play in the national development programme.
Fifty years after the First Five Year Plan, this negative view is being challenged by a more positive discourse promoting the importance of urban agriculture as an integral factor to the development of sustainable and environmentally friendly cities. Cattle and other livestock, formerly perceived as pollutants, are increasingly recognized for their value in recycling waste, as well as in providing products needed by the urban market, and thus offering a source of living for those struggling to make needs meet.
The compounded phrase “landless livestock farmers” might be used to refer landless agricultural labourers whoare able to keep one or two livestock. Alternatively, “landless livestock farmers” might be used to refer to urban-dwellers that have adopted the intensive management and production system of “zero-grazing” or “cut and carry”. In the former case, being landless signifies a social problem and draws attention to issues of rural inequality, poverty and vulnerability. In the latter case, landless may mean nothing more than describing the fact that land for grazing is largely absent in urban areas. Many households involved in landless livestock production in urban areas may, in contrast to their rural counterparts, are comparatively wealthy. The concern is that such imprecision and vagueness in our basic analytical concepts can easily be translated into unfocused development approaches. A more precise categorisation of landless livestock farmers, therefore, is not simply a matter of semantics, but must be regarded as vitally important for the future development of sound policy guidelines and appropriate implementation strategies that meet the particular needs of the poor and vulnerable.

India is producing about 30-32 million tonnes of oilseeds that gives about 20-22 million tonnes of oilcakes/oilmeals. They are ideally suited for compound feed and being mixed to the extent of 20-25% in final feed mix. Compound feed is balanced with all nutrients required for obtaining optimum growth of farm animals, poultry and aqua. Different levels of nutrients, such as proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals are required for different production functions and also at different growth stages. Custom-mixing, home-mixing and traditional methods of direct feeding cannot ensure optimum feed conversion ratio. This makes farming occupation unremunerative to farmers. The compound animal feed industry has utilised the nutritional qualities of various conventional and non-conventional raw materials and scientifically compounded them to prepare animal feed according to the nutritional requirements of the animals. Thus from less than about 50,000 tonnes of production per annum in the early sixties, the compound animals feed industry in India has grown to produce about nine million tonnes of compound feed annually. Countries like Japan and Korea produce 25 million tonnes and 14 million tonnes respectively whereas India having largest cattle population in the world produces only 8 million tonnes.
The solvent extraction industry is offering nine types of oilmeals having proteins ranging between 15 to 50% ideally suited for poultry, cattle and aqua feed. The solvent extraction industry after meeting the domestic requirement is exporting about 3 million tonnes of oil meals mainly of soybean meal and rape seed meal to various counties valued a Rs.2,500/- crores. The quality of Indian meal is well-accepted world over as a quality feed ingredient by the importers. The industry has enough capacity to process raw materials and meet the growing demand from feed industry.
In the recent past scare over the ‘Mad Cow Disease’ rippled around the world. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as Mad Cow Disease is caused by mutated protein known as prion, can spread to people when they eat infected beef products. Beef consumption had dropped by an average of 27 per cent in EU and many non-EU countries. Very recently the US Agriculture Department has temporarily suspended imports of processed beef and associated products from Brazil due to Mad Cow Disease. There is no threat for Indian beef exporter because India does not feed animals with meat and bone meal and only gives vegetarian feeds to the animals. So quality of oilmeals feeding to livestock becomes more important when meat based livestock feed are banned.

ROLE OF FATS IN RATION OF DAIRY ANIMALS
Traditionally fats in livestock rations received less attention compared to other nutrients like proteins, minerals and vitamins and fats were considered essential only as a source of essential fatty acids. However, in recent times there is growing interest in use of fats in livestock rations due to changes in the production potential of animals, changing food habits, higher availability of fats, technological developments and higher production response to added fats. The body cannot synthesize essential fatty acids and they have to be essentially supplied through the diet for which the diets should invariably contain a minimum percentage of fats to ensure adequate dietary supply. Fats are concentrated source of energy and the net energy of fats, which represents the actual amount of energy that is available to the animal for useful purpose, is four times higher than the energy available through carbohydrates and proteins. Addition of fats improve the efficiency of energy utilization due to incorporation of preformed dietary fat which is energetically more efficient than the synthesis. Fats help in absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and they also help in reducing the dustiness of the feeds.
Fats form a physical coating over the feed particles in the rumen and thereby reduce the microbial digestion and also fatty acids have direct antimicrobial effects. They readily react with bivalent cations like calcium and reduce the availability of calcium needed for microbial function. Attempts to improve the nutritional value of milk/meat by increasing the levels of unsaturated fatty acids have not yielded the desired results due to microbial action in the rumen where they undergo biohydrogenation resulting in formation of saturated fatty acids.
In spite of its limitations it is possible to supplement fats in lower proportions following the guidelines given below which tends to minimize the negative effects of fat supplementation.
An important consideration in the successful feeding of fats is maximizing forage intake. A diet containing a high proportion of forage helps to maintain normal rumen function and environment in which fat is less inhibitory to rumen fermentation.
Added fats increase calcium and magnesium requirements and hence the dietary requirement of calcium and magnesium has to be increased by 20-30% above the recommended levels.
Feed relatively saturated fats, as unsaturated fats are less desirable. Animal fats and blended fats have generally yielded the most positive production responses.
With added fats due to increase in the energy content the protein content should be increased to maintain the optimum protein energy ratio.
Rations containing fats should be gradually introduced taking 2-3 weeks to reach maximum intake and it should be fed several times a day instead of the traditional practice of feeding twice or thrice a day.
Recent research works revealed that adding 3-4% fat to the concentrate mix of lactating cows increase milk production by 2-10%.
NEED FOR BYPASS FATS
The necessity of using fats to achieve high energy density in high producing animals and the limitations imposed by the rumen microorganisms to higher levels of fats led to the development of bypass fats or protected fats. Protected fats are inert in the rumen and they pass through the rumen without affecting the rumen flora, but they are digested by enzymatic or chemical processes down the rumen in the abomasum or small intestine delivering large doses of energy to support high milk production.
RELEVANCE OF PROTECTED FATS
Use of protected fats under Indian conditions is still restricted to research institutes and unlike bypass proteins it has not yet been commercially introduced or widely known. Feeding of livestock in India is mainly based on crop residues and energy deficit is one of the major problems affecting the production/productivity of the livestock. Bypass fats are high in energy and they can be used effectively to address this problem. However the widespread use of fats will depend on its availability and economic benefits in relation to use of concentrates.
Poor reproductive performance is a common problem under field conditions and of the various reasons responsible for this, energy deficit is one of the important ones and it is likely that supplementation of bypass fats may improve the energy balance leading to improvement in the reproductive performance.
TOTAL MIXED RATION FEEDING

A TMR or total mixed ration involves mixing together forages, commodities such as meals, whole seed minerals and vitamins in a mixing wagon where each ingredient is known. By blending together the forages, grains and mineral-vitamin supplements, animals are less able to selectively consume individual ingredients. Thus each bite of feed an animal consumes contains the same proportion of forages and concentrates. This can result in less digestive upsets which often increases the amount of feed animal will consume. The more feed an early lactation animal consumes, the more milk she can produce in lactation. A TMR ration may also be prepared by hand mixing and feeding a ration that has been formulated for the animal’s nutrient requirements.