Conservation of Indigenous Breed of Cattle
White Sindhan or Thari, an indigenous breed of
cattle, is also known as Thar Parkar from the name of
the place of its origin, Thar Parkar, a district in Sind.
Cows are good milch animals and bulls are strong
draught animals. There has been a strong
community tradition for breeding and nurturing this
breed that was adept at coping with vagaries of
drought. However, over the last few decades there
has been a gradual decline in the numbers of the
Thar Parkar breed. Erosion of traditional
management practices, apathy of community,
recurrent droughts and uncontrolled inbreeding
could be cited as some of the main reasons for the
decline of this hardy indigenous breed of cattle.
The focus of the programme has been on breed
improvement and breed up-gradation in fifteen
villages of Chohtan and Sheo blocks. From the
beginning all the stakeholders like breeder
associations, village livestock committees, women
associations have played a critical role in the
programme.
Consistent work with the service providers has
facilitated linkages of these livestock committees
with the state departments and resource people for
animal husbandry and veterinary care.
Work by village Livestock Development Committees
(LDC) has been motivating for other farmers. They
have taken initiatives to maintain bulls sheds, run
bull services, manage fodder distribution and,
organizing veterinary health camps. These
committees have been of great help in identifying and
selecting the breedable stock of the animals. After
much persuasion from committee members villagers
have been able to recognize the relevance and the
need to castrate the bulls and shift them. Farmers
from the neighboring villages have expressed their
interest in getting associated with the project.
The Thar Parkar breed improvement programme has
directly benefitted around 2925 families till the end
of 2015. People in the region have got aware about
the proper keeping and management of Thar Parkar
breed. Special efforts have been done to link women
in this project, as they are more involved in animal
husbandry. Due to various activities and capacity
building of breeders, the expenses on animals have
decreased and milk production has increased. There
is high demand of Thar Parkar breed in market.
These efforts of SURE in reviving the Thar Parkar
breed have contributed in improving livelihoods of
people and maintaining an ecological balance in the
region.
SURE’s work in breed improvement of Thar Parkar
breed is an innovation that has demonstrated the
importance of indigenous breed. It has been
recognised by the National Dairy Development Board
(NDDB) as a model to plan similar interventions for
conserving other indigenous breeds of cattle like
Rathi in Bikaner.
Dairy Based Livelihoods
Gudamalani region has been known for its traditional dairy business.However problems like unavailability of fair market opportunities,recurrent droughts, exploitative practices of private vendors made it difficult for milk producers to earn sustainable wages from dairy. The region has lacked collective collection centres and most of the communities did not know modern veterinary care and dairy management techniques.
From 2007, with support from Cairn Energy, the
SURE team engaged itself with spreading awareness
about dairy cooperatives, dairy management and
animal husbandry techniques. With continuous
efforts at forming dairy societies there are more than
1,812 registered members, with milk collection
centers established in all villages. Milk procurement
in the last eight years has been more than 71.88 lakh litres and is being sold to the state dairy federation
SARAS.
Women play an important role in the dairy business.
They have been organized into nine SHGs that have a
total of 170 members who had a total savings of Rs.
5,06,579 till December 2014. Many women have
been given cattle loans to enable them to link to the
dairy centre.
Special focus of the programme has been to empower women from SC/ST communities by giving them leadership roles in village cooperatives. The project also works on issues of short and long term financing of individual and group enterprises, risk aversion through cattle insurance, scholarship schemes for children of dairy members to promote the enterprise of dairying.