Livestock Production Practices of Registered Organic Farmers in Uttarakhand State of India

Summary

The authors studied 180 organic farmers, randomly selected out of 4459 organic farmers registered with Uttarakhand Organic Commodity Board (UOCB), in the North Indian state of Uttarakhand (770 34’ and 810 02’E longitude and 280 43’ to 310 27’ latitude). These farmers were interviewed during 2006-07, using semi-structured Interview schedule, so as to know their Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) in context of their livestock production activities in particular. All the farmers had maintained some animals under crop livestock subsistence mixed farming system, mainly to meet household requirements of milk and more importantly cow dung for use in crop field. These farmers were mostly focussed on organic crop production activities, with active technical and marketing support from UOCB. The animal husbandry practices were mostly traditional but very close to organic livestock production systems when contrasted with the organic livestock standards. It was concluded in the study that conversions to organic livestock production systems would be much easier for these organic farmers, if technical and marketing support is extended beyond crops to cover livestock.