Productive and reproductive performance of livestock reared in drought and flood prone areas of Odisha: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Livestock farming is an integral part of rural livelihood among farmers as income generating option for farmers in Odisha. But the rearing of livestock is greatly affected in a climatic vulnerable state of Odisha due to frequent occurrence of disaster such as flood and drought. These disasters affect the performance of livestock in terms of productive and reproductive efficiency thus denting the output desired by the farmer. This comparative analytical study attempts to understand the performance of livestock reared in flood and drought prone areas on productive and reproductive parameters and gaps in performance with established benchmark. For this study, 320 respondents (160 each from flood and drought areas) were personally interviewed with the help of structured interview schedule administered to them. The performance of livestock reared in disaster prone study area of Odisha performed below par on major parameters such as average daily milk yield, peak yield, dry period, lactation length, inter calving period and age at first calving. Mann Whitney test results at 5% level of significance pointed towards significant difference among performance of bovines reared in flood and drought prone areas of Odisha. The study results suggest necessary policy interventions by the stakeholders of Odisha like State livestock department in consultation with farmers to devise strategies in improving the productive reproductive performance to minimize the gap in performance of livestock.