The Union government will conduct the 21st livestock census in the country during September-December 2024, a five-yearly exercise to provide the latest headcounts of domesticated animals and poultry and breed identification through doorstep visits to households, home-based enterprises, and commercial farms.
The census is crucial to framing policies, raising productivity, and infrastructure development in a sector that is a “vital pillar of the Indian economy," Alka Upadhyaya, the Union secretary of animal husbandry and dairying, said.
India has one of the largest cattle populations globally, and livestock accounts for 5.5% of the country’s gross domestic product. The sector offers livelihood to millions of farmers in the world’s largest milk producer. India is also the world’s second-biggest egg-producing country.
The enumeration drive will be fully digitised, and numerous training sessions with technical experts are being held across the country, the official said. Data will be captured by nearly 80000 surveyors on hand-held devices that will be rapidly uploaded for quicker results. The census went digital in 2019, when the previous census was carried out.
The livestock economy accounts for 30% of the agricultural sector’s gross value added, or GVA, a measure of growth that strips out net taxes. On average, farmers earn far more returns from livestock than from crops alone, according to the farm ministry.
{{/usCountry}}The livestock economy accounts for 30% of the agricultural sector’s gross value added, or GVA, a measure of growth that strips out net taxes. On average, farmers earn far more returns from livestock than from crops alone, according to the farm ministry.
{{/usCountry}}The census will help to identify breeds with high economic potential, and its data are a key component of the “Sustainable Development Goals: National Indicator Framework Progress Report” brought out by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation."
The 21st livestock comes in the wake of a crippling lumpy skin disease outbreak in cattle in 2022–23, which is estimated to have killed or maimed up to a million cattle in the country. The census will help to arrive at a reliable estimate of the toll of the epidemic, a second official said.
The 20th census had shown the country’s cattle population to be 535.78 million, of which 192.49 million were cattle and 109.85 buffaloes. The poultry population in 2019 stood at 851.81 million, comprising 317.07 million backyard birds and 534.74 million in commercial farms. The census is based on a breed-wise schedule devised by the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources, the official said.