February 27, 2013

India to boost livestock, poultry sectors

During the 12th Five Year Plan period, the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) urged the Centre to take steps for improving the poultry and dairy sectors.

"I would like to recommend for improving the poultry and dairy sectors under the 12th Five Year Plan," ICC Director General Rajeev Singh said while addressing the 'Livestock and Poultry India Summit'.

He said that the plan should focus on achieving a 12% annual growth in order to double the size of the poultry and dairy industries by 2017-18 and also called for withdrawing export incentives on corn and soy.

"The latter recommendation (withdrawing export incentives) is done with a view to the on-going livestock expansion's strain on domestic feed crop supplies," Singh said.

"Fast growth in this sector is essential not only to achieve higher productivity levels in livestock production but also for increase in rural house hold income," Singh said, adding rapid modernisation in the dairy industry and increased poultry production have provided impetus to the growth in India's agri-business sector.

Bharat Chandra Narah, former state minister and Press Advisor to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, said development of local and nondescript livestock through artificial insemination programme can be taken up.

"The local livestock should be improved in a phased manner and total replacement of first and second generation stock with the freshly improved breeds should be carried out to maintain productivity of milk. Database on livestock sector should be maintained with all details. This will not only help in planning but also throw light on the performance at different levels," Narah said.

Speaking on the occasion, Assam Parliamentary Secretary for Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bibekananda Dalai said that the state government has taken a number of initiatives for growth of the livestock and poultry sectors. Dalai said that lack of advanced technology, inadequate cold storage facilities and processing equipment at the farm level act as a major constraint in enabling the sectors to witness jump in production and productivity.