Goat Paravet Programme In Mhaswad

The agriculture sector in India has been beset by a host of issues in the past few decades. Recent years have seen a staggering number of farmer suicides, protests, and crop failures, along with the resultant national media and government attention. The year 2018 saw several farmer protests, including two major ones in Mumbai and Delhi, where farmers marched from all over Maharashtra and the country respectively, to bring their demands to the government[1].

However, despite several policy interventions and the implementation of schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, soil health cards, National Agriculture Market (eNAM) and Minimum Support Prices (MSP), the agricultural sector in India continues to flounder[2].

The consensus seems to be that the major issues that plague the sector today include an over dependency on rainfall, fragmented land holdings and decreased productivity, crushing agrarian debt and hence decreased capital investment, both overregulation and under regulation, lack of storage spaces for produce as well as natural disasters such as drought, floods or hailstorms[3].

In such a scenario, some of the solutions that experts have proposed include reducing rainfall dependency by diversifying sources of irrigation, increasing the land ceiling, improving soil quality through watershed management, increasing MSPs and strengthening the linkages between primary producers (farmers) and end consumers. The list is endless and some of these measures have already been put in place by the government or NGOs.

However, one aspect of the rural agricultural ecology that often gets overlooked is the role of livestock in alleviating farmer distress. The role of animals in the agrarian economy and their potential to improve food security and provide a safety net for farmers has largely been ignored, both in the Indian and global context[4].

Livestock help in diversifying the income sources of farmers within the agrarian economy, by providing invaluable sources of labour, meat, milk, and products such as wool and leather. According to the National Livestock Census of 2012, the livestock sector contributed up to 4.11% of the GDP according to the prices in the year 2012-13[5]. In the event of drought and crop failure, livestock assume greater significance for small and marginal landholder farmers, for whom they become an asset.

In the area of rural Maharashtra where I have been working for a year now, drought and agrarian distress are disturbingly common phenomena. The town of Mhaswad falls in the Maandesh region, which is a perpetually hot and dry rain shadow area in western Maharashtra. The Maan region includes the talukas of Man and Khatav in Satara district, Jat, Atpadi and Kavethemahankal in Sangli district, Sangole and Malshiras in Solapur district[6].

The region is supposed to have got its name from the Manganga river, which flows through the area but is mostly dry throughout the year. The semi-arid landscape and scarce rains make this region one of dwindling crop returns, if any. The most commonly grown crops include jowar, bajra, maize, groundnuts, and a few vegetables such as brinjal, onion and drumsticks.

However, if the monsoon rains don’t arrive, which they often don’t, the kharif crop is completely lost while the rabi sowing does not even take place. In such situations, livestock become both an asset and a liability. They are an asset in that they are often the last financial security for the small farmer; even if their prices fall far below their normal price and farmers are forced to sell them.

But his is not a desirable outcome, as farmers greatly value their cattle and are loath to sell them even under extreme situations. Hence, they are also a liability for the farmer, as ensuring for fodder and water for them during a drought proves next to impossible. It is this need to provide for farmers’ cattle that has spurred the Maharashtra government to provide cattle camps or chara chavanis during drought conditions, especially in the dry belts of Marathwada, Vidarbha and some areas of Western Maharashtra.

In 2012-13, one of the most severe droughts in recent memory, Mann Deshi Foundation, the organization where I work, started its first cattle camp in Mhaswad. The camp ran for over 18 months and people from even distant villages and talukas came to live at the camp with their cattle. This year, 2019, has come on the heels of two consecutive years (2018 and 2017) which were without rainfall. Hence, the chavani was started early in January, way before the government chavanis were started in March.

Here, it is important to make a distinction between cattle such as cows and buffaloes, and smaller livestock such as goats and sheep. The cattle camps are set up mainly for cattle, and until recently, did not allow goats or sheep to be brought in. The reason seems to be that goats and sheep are smaller, hardier, more adaptable and have far less requirements than cattle. This makes them invaluable during times of drought, as they not only require less water and fodder, but can also be sold for meat or breeding. In fact, it is this characteristic that makes them more likely to be owned by small and marginal farmers, nomadic pastoralists and other economically or socially marginalized communities[7].

Additionally, they require little capital investment as compared to larger ruminants and there is a market for their products throughout the year. In Maharashtra, traditionally sheep and goat farmers are from the Dhangar or Lonari communities. These communities usually migrate along with their goat/sheep flocks during the dry summers to the more fodder rich areas of coastal and Western Maharashtra, returning only after the arrival of rains in their region. In fact, goats form 25.96% of the livestock population in Maharashtra, just after cattle at 47.66%.[8]

In Satara district, there are 434 goats for every 1000 households, both rural and urban combined. Some districts of Western Maharashtra such as Solapur, Sangli and Satara, also have some of the highest goat populations in the state[9].

Apart from these communities, farming households in these arid regions also usually own on an average at least three to four goats (the average is for Satara district). These animals are usually reared for milk production and breeding. More importantly, they are mostly looked after by the women, as they are more likely to be at home to attend to their needs. Thus, goat rearing is looked at as a domestic responsibility in which the goats are only kept to meet the sustenance needs of the family for milk and meat.

However, goat rearing has much potential as a livelihood opportunity for farming households and for overall rural development. Considering this and the role of women in goat rearing, Mann Deshi decided to start the Goat Farming and Insemination (GFI) project in 2014. While the foundation was already giving agri-business and goat farming training to rural women through its Business School Program, the GFI project aimed to explicitly focus on goat rearing.

While women were involved in rearing goats at home, they had little to no knowledge about procedures such as vaccination or medically treating goats for specific diseases. Thus, no matter how well they took care of their goats, the animals were ultimately at the mercy of private and government veterinarians, who were rarely ever in time to treat sick and diseased animals. The program thus aimed to train women as Sheli Sakhis (Goat Paravets), who could conduct procedures such as vaccination and artificial insemination, which strengthened existing animals and produced healthier offspring, respectively.

About The Goat Farming And Insemination Project

The goat farming and insemination project was started as a standalone program in 2014. The demand for the project came from the women beneficiaries of the business school program, who wanted to learn about agro-allied activities that could be undertaken in case of drought or crop failure. On receiving such requests, Mann Deshi did a survey in Maan and Khatav talukas on the number of goats and goat farming households in the region, and found the numbers to be high. However, as expected, the surveys revealed there were very few large goat farms. Most families owned around 2-3 goats and goat rearing was more of a domestic undertaking, typically being the responsibility of women.

There was immense potential here for a livelihood opportunity for marginalized women goat farmers. The vision was to empower women goat farmers from the community to administer vaccinations and artificial insemination (AI) procedures, thus empowering them and other women from their communities to breed more and healthier goats. Mann Deshi partnered with Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), one of the foremost agricultural research institutes in the country, to provide training for the women in artificial insemination and vaccination.

While AI is an accepted procedure for bovine cattle, many goat farmers were hesitant about its effects on goats. Thus, a pilot AI drive for the program was conducted in two villages, Jambhulni and Pulkoti, where 25 healthy goats were inseminated. After 5 months, when the goats bore healthy and heavier kids, which fetched more than the average price in the animal market, farmers became convinced of the validity of AI and began to approach the goat paravets to inseminate their goats.

While the project initially had AI and vaccination procedures, farmers challenged the goat paravets with situations in which their goats were ill and government appointed veterinarians were too distantly located to be of much use. Thus, primary treatment was included in the repertoire of skills imparted to the goat paravets. The project has also been evolving according to the needs of the farmers, including fodder seeds for planting (earlier food crop residues would be used as fodder), nutritional supplements for goats, goat laboratories, electronic weighing machines and more.

Objective And Methodology

This essay seeks to understand the long term impact that the GFI project has had on the goat paravets. The impact will be assessed for the goat paravets through qualitative data acquired through in-depth semi-structured interviews and a focus group discussion. Another related objective of the paper is to assess the relevance of the program as a sustainable livelihoods development intervention. Although I do not have the expertise to assess the ecological impact of the program, discussions with the goat paravets have shed some light on the perceived viability of goat farming and the GFI project itself as a livelihood opportunity. It is this aspect that I would like to explore.

Impact Of The GFI Project

The GFI program was conceptualized with a two-fold benefit in mind. By training women from the community itself, the aim was to empower them as well as the communities they served. The objective was not to create a specialized elite group of women goat paravets but to make sure these women became agents of change in their communities and equip local farmers with the information and resources they required for profitable goat rearing.

That being said, these women are also the direct beneficiaries of the program, and some of them have been associated with it for four or five years. Thus, it is also crucial to measure the long-term impact it has had on their lives. Since there was no baseline survey taken at the time the goat paravets joined the program, the impact information is mostly qualitative and dependent on the goat paravets’ own perception of their improvement over the duration of their association with the program.

If patriarchy is the system that ensures men have access to and control over the productive resources of human society, then women’s empowerment would mean a dismantling of this system.

Productive resources need not be limited to the Marxian land, labour and capital, but include more intangible resources such as knowledge, cultural capital, technology and power. This makes women’s empowerment a complex concept and not necessarily a straightforward task. However, there are several empowerment indices that aim to break down empowerment into more accessible dimensions or domains.

These dimensions usually include economic participation and opportunity, political participation, education, health and reproductive rights. There are several women’s empowerment measures that make use of these domains, such as the Gender Empowerment Measure (WEM) of the UNDP, the Gender-related Development Index (which adopts the HDI for gender-based inequalities) and the Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum[10].

However, for this essay, I relied on the impact indicators developed by Mann Deshi for the GFI project. These indicators not only measure progress on the dimensions mentioned above but also employ indicators more relevant to the context of the project and the area. These include economic impact indicators such as banking information, assets, home improvements, etc. as well as social indicators such as agency, mobility, decision making and community leadership/public participation. 

The Goat Paravets in action. Clockwise from left: Varsha Sathe, Radhika Shinde, Rupali Dombe and Sangita Tupe

The semi-structured interviews were held with 5 goat doctors in Mhaswad: Radhika Shinde, Sangita Tupe, Varsha Sathe, Rupali Dombe and Sunita Kamble. All the women are from lower caste OBC and Dalit communities. Talking to them revealed areas in which they were truly empowered, while some aspects had hardly changed. In terms of the economic indicators, such as having and operating a bank account, maintaining savings and RDs, and taking out loans, all of the women had made progress on at least two of these indicators. The longer their association with the project, the more economic progress they seem to have made.

For instance, Rupali Dombe, who joined the program in 2018, has purchased a two-wheeler on installments since joining the program. Varsha Sathe, who joined the program in 2017, bought a two-wheeler and built a toilet in her house after joining the program. She also saves in an SHG every month. Her in-laws, who were agricultural labourers before, no longer have to work on other’s fields. Sangita Tupe, who joined the programme in 2015, has bought a two-wheeler and built two additional rooms to her two-room house.

Sunita Kamble, one of the first few women to be trained as a goat paravet also has made much economic progress since joining the program in 2014. While earlier, she did not have any livestock, she now rears six goats and one cow (recently she sold one of her cows for Rs. 30,000). She also recalls that she purchased a fan, television and cooker for her household after joining the program. She recently also built a house for her family in November 2018. She also saves two hundred rupees every month in a recurring deposit in a Patsanstha (co-operative credit society).

While these impacts are impressive, what one must keep in mind is that for most of these women, they are the only members of their families to have a salaried job. This is not necessarily related to their role as goat paravets. The financial security afforded by a regular job facilitates financial planning and saving.

This would also explain the fact that the longer they have been associated with the program, the greater the economic benefits: their salary is subject to increments and the senior most goat paravets also have the highest salaries. In terms of their progress in banking and financial planning, any employee of the foundation is compulsorily required to open a bank account in the Mann Deshi Mahila Bank. Thus, these women also were introduced to banking and operating accounts due to their job, as they withdraw their salary every month from their accounts. The financial literacy trainings that the Foundation provides to its employees and account holders of the bank have no doubt also contributed in building an understanding of the importance of savings.

Apart from the myriad economic benefits that the women have experienced, there have been several improvements in domains like autonomy, decision making and community participation. Initially, when the goat paravets of this project first stepped on to the field, they faced much criticism and ridicule from goat farmers, both male and female, even from within their own villages and communities.

This was because although goat rearing at home is usually undertaken by women, providing veterinary services such as vaccination and primary treatment are a male dominated endeavor. Government appointed and private veterinarians are invariably male. Thus, these women were often mocked for being uneducated (most of them have only studied up to class 10 or even 8) and for trying to do what was perceived as men’s work. The goat doctors also received more censure when they began setting up their stalls at the weekly goat markets. These markets are crowded, completely male dominated spaces and it was hard to create a foothold for themselves.

However, the stalls have been very successful, with most calls coming in from farmers who heard about the program at the market. In fact, today, the situation has changed to such an extent that farmers prefer calling the goat paravets to male veterinarians. The goat paravets are now perceived as more efficient, better-equipped and quick responders to goat farmer’s requests. This involves them having to attend calls for AI or primary treatment mostly, as late as 8 or 9 pm at night.

When I asked them how they felt about having to attend to calls at any time or traverse long distances at night, their response was surprisingly nonchalant. They took it as a part of their job, which they couldn’t avoid.

Sangita Tupe said this was the reason why she was drawing her salary – to do her job. Some of the goat paravets like Sangita and Varsha Sathe are ferried by their husbands to the location of the goat farmer. When I asked them how their husbands felt about having to attend calls at any time, they said they were used to it now and hardly complained. Radhika Shinde said her family would mostly be worried for her safety and would advise her to take well-lit and busy roads.

This brings me to my second point, which is how their relationship with their husbands, family and community have evolved since their association with the program. A few of them, such as Sangita Tupe and Varsha Sathe have had supportive families and husbands. However, for goat doctors such as Rupali Dombe and Sunita Kamble, the respect of their husbands and other family members was not so easily earned.

Rupali Dombe describes how her husband didn’t earn and yet tried to prevent her from taking up the goat paravet job, as it would involve travelling to different villages. Sunita Kamble had been married into a very conservative household where it was unthinkable for women to go out and work. However, now she reports that she has much more say in decisions made at home, right from what vegetable would be cooked to her children’s education and home improvements. She says her husband’s support has been very helpful in overcoming resistance from her in-laws.

Radhika Shinde described how her relationship with the community has evolved. When she began working as a goat paravet, other women in the village would gossip about her long working hours and her character. However, now she has earned respect in her village and everyone recognizes her as the ‘goat doctor madam’.

Similarly, Sunita Kamble, who has received the Niti Aayog’s Women Transforming India (WTI) award, says she only got the respect of her family, community and the gram sarpanch after she won the award and her story was broadcast on the local news channel. Rupali Dombe also says that the respect (‘maan-samman’) she receives from society is worth more to her than the salary she earns.

From these findings, it is clear that the program has had a significant impact on the lives of the goat paravets associated with it. What is not so clear is how far this impact has been a direct result of the program. Holding a salaried job may be the factor that facilitated the intense socioeconomic improvements of the doctors. However, it does not explain the niche carved out for them as the ‘goat doctor madams’, which is intrinsically linked to the nature of their work. The ‘goat doctor madams’ busy registering goat farmers after the chavani recently allowed the entry of goats and sheep.

Goat Paravet Radhika Shinde conducting goat vaccination

The Program As A Sustainable Livelihood Intervention

The GFI project was envisioned as a livelihoods and women empowerment intervention that would empower women goat farmers to be self-sufficient in rearing their livestock. The method adopted to achieve this goal was to train women from the community itself who would further disseminate this information along with administering the procedures they would be trained in. In line with this vision, the goat paravets not only attend calls from goat farmers but also organize workshops and information sessions on vaccination, primary treatment and even AI. They train the farmers to conduct the procedures and also take them on exposure visits to agricultural institutes like Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) or NARI.

The initiative for training members from within the community in a specific skill has long been taken up by the government in the form of local governance initiatives such as that of Anganwadi workers, ASHA volunteers, Gram Sevaks and Sevikas, etc. These initiatives encourage self-sufficiency within villages and also help in democratizing access to necessary information and resources. Thus, the GFI project aimed to do the same for goat farming in the region. The government of Maharashtra recognizes that goat and sheep rearing have much potential, which remains unrealized [11]

As mentioned before, goats are usually bred as a domestic activity and are not perceived as a business opportunity. However, the goat paravets attempt to remedy that by teaching the farmers techniques such as vaccination and primary treatment so that they can be self-sufficient in taking care of their goats. They also give farmers advice and ideas on how to start their own goat businesses. In this drought prone area, goats can greatly supplement the meagre income from farming.

One of the most important points that came out from the focus group discussion was that goat rearing is not thought of an exclusive source of income. Even those beneficiaries who have begun their goat rearing businesses do not only rely on goat rearing for their income. In fact, most farming households do not sell the milk they receive from their goats and use it for household activities. Thus, the only direct income they can receive from their goats is through selling them in the animal market. Usually, goats bred through AI fetch a greater price at the market.

The goat paravets say that even those farmers who did not own goats before often buy them after exposure to the program. Many beneficiaries also begin their businesses by inseminating their existing goats. Considering that goat rearing requires far less capital investment than large cattle, it is within the reach of even those who do not own farming land. Thus, although goat rearing cannot be a standalone business for most farmers, it is a valuable supplementary source of income for farmers.

As the incomes from farming remain meagre and irregular, livestock such as these are invaluable in diversifying sources of income of the farmer. In fact, in recent years, the number of goats being farmed has reduced considerably. The 2012 National Livestock Census shows a decrease of 18.82% in the number of goats bred since the last census in 2007[12].

Reports indicate that farmers are increasingly moving towards supplementing their farm income through non-farm sources of income [13]. Thus, in such a scenario, encouraging livestock rearing helps in improving the financial and food security of the farmer.

However, if goat rearing cannot be a standalone business at this point, then the program would benefit from including rearing of other smaller livestock such as sheep and pigs. This would include more number of marginalized communities in the program’s ambit, who already rear sheep and pigs but are unaware of how to profit from them. Smaller ruminants like goats and sheep have a much smaller environmental footprint than larger milch animals like cows and buffaloes. Hence, it makes both ecological and economic sense to cultivate and encourage their rearing among poor and marginal farmers. The program is already moving towards diversifying by introducing hatchery machines to the beneficiaries.

The vision that the program carried for a community self-sufficient in rearing its own goats is still a long way off. The goat paravets, however, say that a lot of progress has been made. The goat owners are no longer suspicious of them and procedures like AI. Sangita Tupe says that even when they go to a new area for survey, the general level of awareness of the farmers has really improved and she no longer receives hostile behaviour. Although farmers are now more aware and more likely to call the goat paravets for AI or primary treatment, they are still dependent on the goat paravets.

There is a conflict of interest here; if the farmers were to become truly self-sufficient, the goat paravets might find themselves limited to AI only, which is difficult to undertake without institutional support in the form of equipment. Thus, the project needs to work out how such a scenario can be facilitated without adversely affecting the salaries and job security of the goat paravets. Also, since the program is currently run with the help of external funds from donors, there is a need to make it sustainable at some point.

Goat Paravets (from left) Rupali Dombe, Sangita Tupe and Radhika Shinde share a laugh while preparing the masala bolus goat nutrition supplements

The accuracy and relevance of the results of this study are affected by certain limitations. For one, no direct information has been taken from the goat farmers who benefit from the program; secondary data and the perspective of the field agents (i.e. goat paravets) have been used to make inferences.

Secondly, the goat paravets interviewed are all from within Mhaswad branch, while the project is operational in five other branches of Dahiwadi, Vaduj, Lonand, Nashik and Sinnar. Moreover, the long-term impact studied is greatly dependent on the recall and perception of the goat paravets themselves, as no baseline survey of the paravets was conducted at the time of their joining the program. Thus, more information needs to be collected to triangulate the results of this study.

References:

1. ‘Why Are Our Farmers Angry?’, October 4, 2018, in EPW Engage. https://www.epw.in/engage/article/farmer-protests-delhi
2. ‘Indian Agriculture - what ails and fails the farmer?’, by Ram Mudholkar, March 13, 2018, in Business Today. https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/columns/indian-agriculture-what-ails-and-fails-the-farmer-and-a-look-at-policy-imperatives-for-sustainability-in-agriculture/story/260922.html
3. ‘Opinion | Indian agriculture’s problem of scale’, October 4, 2018, in Livemint. https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/AWOJfzdPGOL1kPNifewYcI/Opinion--Indian-agricultures-problem-of-scale.html
4. ‘The role of livestock in sustainable agriculture; delivering for people, animals and planet’, in Committee on World Food Security. http://www.fao.org/cfs/home/plenary/cfs43/side-events/7/en/
5. 19th Livestock Census – 2012, All India Report, Ministry of Agriculture, 17 June, 2014, p. 1. http://www.dahd.nic.in/documents/statistics/livestock-census
6. ‘Families separated by the search for fodder’, Medha Kale, February 18, 2019, in People’s Archive of Rural India. https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/families-separated-by-the-search-for-fodder
7. ‘Status of Sheep and Goat Sector in Maharashtra’, January 11, 2010, in Department of Animal Husbandry, Government of Maharashtra. https://ahd.maharashtra.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=200&Itemid=138
8. Volume II, Statewise Livestock Census 2012, Ministry of Agriculture, p. 357.
9. Ibid., p. 402, 365
10. ‘Gender Equality Indicators: What, Why And How?’ https://www.oecd.org/dac/gender-development/44952761.pdf
11. ‘Status of Sheep and Goat Sector in Maharashtra’, January 11, 2010, in Department of Animal Husbandry, Government of Maharashtra. https://ahd.maharashtra.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=200&Itemid=138
12. Volume II, Statewise Livestock Census 2012, Ministry of Agriculture, p. 358.
13. ‘Why Are Our Farmers Angry?’, October 4, 2018, in EPW Engage. https://www.epw.in/engage/article/farmer-protests-delhi

About the author: Adrija Chaudhuri did her graduation in History, where she was also exposed to sociology and anthropology. This sparked an interest in learning not just about the pasts of communities and cultures, but also how the fractures of the post-colonial world have affected them in the present. At India Fellow, she was placed with Mann Deshi Foundation in Mhaswad, Maharashtra, in 2018, where she worked on documentation and data management, and learnt much from the people of this drought-prone, semi-arid part of Western Maharashtra. She enjoys trekking and exploring little known places.