Impact of Covid-19 on Animal Husbandry Sector in India

Introduction

The world is currently facing in unprecedented challenges name Covid-19 pandemic which started from a city called Wuhan and gradually spread all over the globe and affecting each other and every aspect of life be it political, social and economical. Many sectors of the economy are adversely affected by this pandemic, one of these sectors include ‘Animal husbandry sector’, which is currently under tremendous pressure. So basically animal husbandry is a branch of agriculture which is concerned with animals that are raised for milk, meat, eggs, fiber etc. Recently we even faced a bird flu incident but the losses were far less as compared to covid-19. In India agriculture is the backbone of our economy. The contribution of agriculture and allied sector in Indian gross value added (GVA) at constant price is 14.9 % during the year 2017-18. Out of this contribution Animal husbandry contributes 4.1% to total GVA and 27.42% in total agriculture and allied sector GVA. In India 70% of our workforce depends on agriculture and allied sector for income. About 20 million people depend upon livestock for their livelihood. It contributes 16% of the income of small farm households. It provide likelihood to two third of rural community. It also provides employment to about 8.8 % of India. Beside the significant contribution to the economy livestock provide food and non-food items to common people like milk, meat, egg, fiber, skin, draft such as bullocks, dung and animal waste used in agriculture area, are considered as moving bank, have cultural significance, are used for sports recreation and as companion animals.

Pandemic hits animal husbandry sector hard

The commodities from the animal husbandry sector are mostly perishable or we can say have shorter self life as compared to a agricultural produces. Being a perishable commodity was the major cause of losses faced the animal husbandry sector. In India most of the sectors have been badly hit by Covid-19 pandemic and Animal husbandry also could not remain untouched by it. Animal husbandry sector in India has suffered huge economic losses especially during starting phase of pandemic. The imposition of strict lockdown by the government and the rumor mongering, the decrease in demand and the disruption of supply chain are some of the most important factor which are affected this sector.

Rumor mongering

We are very well aware of the fact that how rumors spread in India without any scientific evidences. Ever since the pandemic spread there were rumors of virus spreading through animal meat chicken until center for disease control and prevention declared the virus is known to be translated by direct contact with humans. But due to these rumors people became apprehensive about consuming these products and demand for these items shrank.

Lock down and disturbed supply chains

To contain the virus from spreading government imposed strict lockdown measures which affected the sector very bad some of the impacts are discussed below:-

1. Due to lockdown supply chain across the world and within the countries are severely disrupted and along with this rumors’, price volatility etc. are some of the major challenges faced by the feed manufacturers.
2. During lockdown the demand for milk is decreased at least by 25% as many hotels and restaurants are shut down. So along with decrease in quantity, the price for this also decreased.
3. Before pandemic the growth of sector was due to the increasing demand of luxury items with changing lifestyle but due to lockdown unemployment is increasing and the purchasing power is coming down, so the people prefer cheaper replacement items.
4. Other factors responsible for decrease in demand include decrease in tourism, suspension of school feeding programs etc.

Impact on production

• Access to animal feed has declined- as industries facing problem like keeping proper social distance, PPE requirement, labor shortage, decreased supply of raw materials etc.
• Fisheries sector is affected due to the movement restriction.
• Due to moment restriction on national and international routes, the access to important services has declined example decrease access to breeding and replacements stock like day old chicken.
• Dairy cooperative are facing shortage of supply
• Decline in access to animal. This has been increasing cost of production for farmers as they have to keep the stock for a longer time because they cannot sell it to the slaughter house of processing plant.
• Even where there is demand, the supply cannot be reached due to the supply chain destruction, which leads to the wastage of fresh produce.

Pandemic impacting life of people associated with the sector

As we have earlier discussed earlier how millions of people in the labor force are dependent on the animal husbandry sector for their livelihood. With decreasing employment many people are becoming deprived of their livelihood means. People especially women in rural areas are facing problems because they can’t sell the produce either to cooperative or hotels etc. and because of this there is decrease in the quantity sold and price they are getting is also been decreasing. Apart from this many people are losing employment such as people engaged in supply chain, processing plants, butchery, traders, milk cooperative, farmers producer organizations, which is pushing them into poverty without means of livelihood. Along with these people, the common people are also getting affected because of its impacts on food security.

How to manage

1. Provide incentives to the people, who are unable to sell their produce, bearing increase production costs, are provided with lesser remuneration and the people who lost their jobs during the lockdown period.
2. Provide proper safety arrangement like PPE to the industry workers, resumption of important supply chains with proper health safety measures must be prioritized.
3. To tackle the rumors regarding diseases spread through animal products, government must run some awareness campaigns on media or social media
4. We can adopt some global model such as modified retailing example- in China after the crisis the e-commerce delivery systems show an increase of volume by 400%. This can be applied to India after creating proper e-commerce delivery services.

Conclusion

So, as we already know how animal husbandry sector is an important contributor to the overall economy at general and agriculture sector at particular and like other sectors of economy it could not escape from the devastating impact covid-19 pandemic. Though the losses faced due to the pandemic cannot be managed but at least we can learn from this pandemic how and where to minimize the losses.  So it must be adequately supported, as livestock along with agriculture form the backbone of rural economy. And animal husbandry sector plays the prominent role for the vision envisaged by your own honorable prime minister of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.