Study on Supply Chains of Goats in Northern Kerala

A study was undertaken to assess the socio-economic status of the goat farmers and various supply chains of goats in the northern part of Kerala. Agriculture remains the major occupation in the area, dominated by small, marginal and homestead farmers. The average land holdings were small with 10-20 cents. Goat farming was mainly dominated by small and marginal farmers. According to the livestock census 2012, goat population in Kerala was 12.46 lakhs, next to cattle with 13.29 lakhs. The study was conducted during 2015-16 period at six centres centers of the All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) for the improvement of Malabari goat viz. Vadakara and Perambra, Taliparamba and Thalassery and Kottakkal and Tanur located at Kozhikode, Kannur and Malapuram district, respectively. Information were collected through well structured pre-tested interview schedule developed at Goat and Sheep farm, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Mannuthy, Thrissur, Kerala. Sixty farmers from each of the six centres were randomly selected to constitute a total of 360 farmers as sample for the study. Around 90% of the goat farmers in above areas were having land holding less than 30 cents. The participation of women in goat rearing and production was about 65%. Nearly 92% of the heads of the families were educated and 15% of them had high school level education and above the average flock size was around 4.10. Around 85 % farmers follows homestead production system with flock size 4-6, 18-19% farmers follows semi intensive system with average flock size farmers follows and only less than 0.5% follows intensive system with flock size 35-40 goats, most of them rear goats exclusively for meat production. The study also elaborated various supply chains in goat rearing especially in case of goat meat production in the region.