Role of Livestock and Animal Husbandry
Animal husbandry and livestock plays an important role in augmenting rural income, health and employment as follows:
- Provides food like milk, meat and other value-added products, thus preventing poverty and helping to have self-sufficiency in food security.
- Provides valuable organic manure for agriculture, thus improving soil fertility and productivity.
- Provides draught animal power for different agricultural operations and also for transportation, thus helping to conserve fossil fuel.
- Provides a platform for ensuring sustainability (biological and economic), thus bringing about a change in the social status (society).
- Provides skin and hides for leather products, thus helping to make additional income and earn foreign exchange.
- Provides other byproducts like hoof and horns, thus promoting rural handicraft industries.
- Provides wool and other natural fibres of importance, thus helping to improve income and promote industrial growth.
- Provides blood as a byproduct, thus helping to produce hematinic and other pharmacological products
- Provides gainful rural employment for many people, thus helping to have full-time self employment.
- Provides a means of storing wealth and also a way to meet social obligations, thus helping to have security and overcome difficult times
- Provides a means of controlling weeds by grazing, thus helping to keep the premises clean
Overall, Animal husbandry and livestock can be considered as a major instrument for effecting a desirable change in the society.
