Increased focus on agricultural allied sectors such as animal husbandry has helped improve India’s per capita milk availability to 427 grams per day for the year 2020-21, up from 319 grams in 2014-15. The Economic Survey 2020-21, tabled in Parliament on Monday showed that the livestock sector including animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries grew at a CAGR of 8.15 per cent during 2014-15 to 2019-20 (at constant prices). “It is observed that even the segments like marine products, buffalo meat, tea, coffee and dairy products, which had not performed well during 2020-21, have registered substantial growth during the current year. This augurs well for further diversification and strengthening of agricultural exports in the coming years,” the Survey noted. Per capita availability of meat has increased to 6.52 kg per year in 2020-21 from 5.32 kg per year in 2014-15. Egg availability has improved to 91 eggs per person per year from 62 in 2014-15. The livestock sector is an important subsector of agriculture in the Indian economy, contributing 29.35 per cent (2019-20) in the total agriculture and allied sector gross value added (GVA), up from 24.32 per cent in 2014-15, as per the estimates of National Accounts Statistics (NAS) 2020. The livestock sector contributed 4.35 per cent of total GVA in 2019-20.

Other high growth sectors

Allied sectors including animal husbandry, dairying and fishing are steadily emerging to be high growth sectors, it said quoting the latest SAS that the livestock sector has been a stable source of income across groups of agricultural households accounting for about 15 per cent of their average monthly income. This is in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Doubling Farmers’ Income which has suggested a greater focus on allied sectors to improve farmers’ income. The Economic Survey 2021-22 also noted that dairy is the single largest agricultural commodity contributing 5 per cent of the national economy and employing more than eight crore farmers directly. India’s milk production has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of about 6.2 per cent to reach 209.96 million tonnes in 2020-21 from 146.31 million tonnes in 2014-15.

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