Vol. 11, Special Issue 7 (2022)

Author(s):
Dilip Rasiklal Vahoniya, Archit Kumar Nayak, FP Savaliya, RS Pundir, Ashish Mahera, Janki Patel, Jerul Halpati and Anil Garval

Abstract:
Goat farming offers tremendous potential for rural development since it serves as a ready-to-use economic asset for farmers in times of crisis, offering meat, milk, and skin. Goat farming has been increasingly recognized to provide subsidiary employment to small and marginal farmers owing to its distinct economic and management advantages over other livestock. The present article presents a step-by-step review of 34 research studies conducted in the area of goat farming related to production and marketing during the period of 2005-2020. The present study identified the common themes, patterns, and challenges of goat farming in India by analysing the existing studies. Based on the areas covered by the previous research studies, this paper is broadly divided into four major parts; socioeconomics, farm economics, marketing, and constraints. The findings indicate that goat farming in India is characterized by poor socio-economic conditions of farmers and is faced with constraints like low returns, high inputs, and marketing costs, and poor breed and feed management. Hence, there is a need to increase the scale of operations of goat farmers through favourable policy measures like encouraging the formation of goat producer organizations with adequate capacity-building programs.