Animal Husbandry

Animal husbandry is the agricultural practice of breeding and raising livestock, and the chapter is careful to describe it as being every bit as much a science as it is a skill or an art practised by farmers. In its narrowest sense it covers the care and breeding of livestock such as buffaloes, cows, pigs, horses, cattle, sheep, camels and goats — animals directly useful to humans — but the chapter treats animal husbandry more broadly, as also encompassing poultry farming, fish farming, bee-keeping, sericulture and lac culture, since all of these involve rearing an animal (honeybees, silkworms, prawns, crabs, fish, birds and mammals alike) specifically to obtain a product such as milk, eggs, meat, wool, honey or silk.

A recurring theme is that simply 'taking care' of animals in the traditional way is not enough to maximise productivity. India and China together hold about 70% of the world's total livestock population, yet their combined productivity accounts for only about 25% of the world's farm produce — a striking mismatch that the chapter attributes to a lack of professional, industrial-style management. Closing that gap requires proper management procedures and new technologies applied across every part of the farming system, along with industrial principles of production, processing and marketing rather than purely traditional practice. …