SA PPLPP focuses its work on three core sectors:
Smallholder Poultry Rearing
Smallholder or backyard poultry rearing is a key livelihood activity for a large number of rural households in South Asia. In addition to small (but sustained) income, small poultry flocks reared by rural households contribute significantly to household food and nutrition security.
In Bangladesh, 80 to 90 per cent of rural households are estimated to keep flocks of 3 to 10 birds. In Bhutan, a majority of rural households keep some poultry birds; and village chicken constitute approximately 86 per cent of the national poultry stock; there are only a few commercial layer farms around major urban centres. In India, agricultural households keep about 85 per cent of the poultry stock
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Small Ruminant Rearing
India supports 16.1% of the world’s goat population and 6.4% of its sheep (FAO Statistics,1 2013), making it among the highest livestock holding countries in the world. Based on the latest GoI statistics (19th Livestock Census, 2012), the number of sheep and goats in the country is 65.06 and 135.17 million, respectively.
The state with the highest number of goats is Rajasthan (21.6 million), followed by Uttar Pradesh (15.6 million). Sheep rearing is more frequently a feature of the arid and semi-arid regions of western India, the Deccan plateau and the western Himalayas. States with significant sheep populations include Andhra Pradesh (26.3 million), Karnataka (9.6 million) and Rajasthan (9.1 million)...Read More
Smallholder Livestock Rearing and Common Lands
A large majority of the farming community in India comprises small and marginal farmers, who own close to 70% of the livestock. With limited land holdings, these farmers have traditionally relied on common lands and other common resources for meeting a significant portion of the fodder (and water) requirements for their livestock.
Common property resources are defined as resources accessible to the whole community of a village and to which no individual has exclusive property rights. In the dry regions of India, these include village pastures, community forests, wastelands, common threshing grounds, waste dumping places, watershed drainages, village ponds, tanks, rivers/ rivulets and river beds
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