Livestock Marketing
Empowering Rural Producers

By Lila Bahadur Karki & Dr. Laxman Sherchan

THE agricultural sector is the only major sector to supply plant and animal protein to increasing mouths of the kingdom. But the supply scenario in both cases is not satisfactory. The peak demand of animal protein is during Dashain and Tihar every year. Due to socio-cultural, religious and consumers’ preference, the major quantity demand is for goats and sheep. Since there is no hard and fix regulation for import of animals, most goat and sheep are being imported (70 per cent) into the country without any controlling mechanism. And the main entry points are Tibet in the north and the Indian borders in the south.

Imports
To check and monitor such import from the major entry points, Animal Quarantine Check post have been established and functioning in many areas in the south of the country. But in the previous years, there were no by-laws passed to strictly monitor this business. Now, the hope of the local producers have revived since the quarantine act has been passed this year. Imported live animals might influence the environment in many ways like, may carry number of diseases which can be transferred to the local animals and human beings while consuming meat of these slaughtered animals. Because of unhygienic competition, the local producers are always in trouble and will not sustain unless the quarantine check posts handle all these activities smoothly in a systematic way.

Available data reveal that the total meat supplied as animal protein to the human beings is 20 per cent, 2 per cent, 6 per cent, 7 per cent and about 65 per cent from goat, sheep, poultry, pig and buffalo respectively. Goat and sheep not only play vital role in national livestock economy but also are regarded as economically promising animals for majority of ethnic groups of Nepal. It is estimated that about 35,000 goat and sheep alone are sold at Kathmandu Valley from private as well as public agencies during Dashain only. The major chunk (70 per cent) comes from terai, hills and India. It has also been found that about 8,000 heads of sheep and goats are consumed per month in the valley. There are very few commercial growers of goat and sheep in Nepal. The supplies therefore came from scattered collection by numerous petty traders. As a consequence, a large portion of the meat is supplied from Tibet (sheep and mountain goat) and goats and duck from Indian borders. It is reported from the Department of Customs that live sheep and goats imported from India and Tibet amount to millions of rupees.

It is also reported from the Department of Customs that 18,66,850 chicken and ducks, 2,31,063 goats, 1,27,769 buffaloes and 11,242 swine are imported. Whereas only 56,718 goats, 16,311 buffaloes and 25,940 pigs are exported. The ratio of export to import looks very glimpsy.

Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) is the only major authority having mandate to import live animals to supply animal protein source as per the demand of local inhabitants. It had imported 2,700 heads of sheep, mountain goat and goats in 1999. This quantity in fact is merely peanuts to the increased demand every year in the valley alone. Similarly, irrespective of import sources, goats might be locally purchased to some extent. The NFC sold out 3,651 goats and 3,913 sheep and chyangra during Dashain festival in the year 054/55 and 4,000 goats and 2,000 sheep and chyangra in the year 055/56.

Due to lack of road access in many mid-hill and high-hill districts, producers have to go long way to reach the market which has further minimized the profit margin of the producers. The figure of imported live animals heads vary as per the sources primarily due to open border. For instance, Quarantine check post had reported 1,25,000 head and the Department of Customs had reported 2,31,000 heads of sheep, mountain goat and the goats were imported from different points in the country.

The other governmental sources, the quarantine check posts headed by the Department of Livestock Services established in different major import points have reported that the import has been found to have increased by 33 per cent, 20 per cent, 17 per cent and 16 per cent, goats, sheep, poultry/duck/laucat, poultry-egg in the year 2054/55 as compared to the previous year. On the contrary, import of buffaloes and pigs reduced by 26 per cent and 36 per cent respectively in the same year. Besides quarantine check points, there are several other points whereby live animals are being imported. For instance 2,000, 4,988 and 3,500 heads of sheep, chyangra and goats were imported from the entry points of Mugu, Humla and Jumla in the fiscal year 2053/54 according to official sources.

Envisaged growth rates in the livestock sector has been targeted to increase from 2.3 per cent to 6.2 per cent during the APP period. The growth rate of egg and meat production is expected to be 7.22 per cent and 6.22 per cent at the end of Ninth Plan. For this numerous programmes are planned. But the output might be guided by the extent of resource allocation, commitment of the personnel, management systems and active participation of the producers in each type of income generating activity.

The productivity of indigenous livestock can be increased through out breeding with genetically superior males. The achievement so far was made by 31.8 per cent in piggery, 5 per cent in sheep and goat and 22 per cent in poultry. Still there is a big challenge to the concerned authorities and technicians to bring the necessary increment in production and productivity whereby basic level of required nutrients is being supplied to the increasing populace of the country.

There are many support programmes to help the local producers but the scanty resources in terms of money, material and manpower are the major constraints to implement the programmes extensively. However, commitment of the executing agencies and personnel is trivial in this regard.

To concentrate the resources in the potential districts a concept of pocket package programme has emerged. To strengthen this, the 9th Plan has envisaged to have 13,100 goat groups, 820 poultry groups, 650 piggery groups, 250 sheep groups and 220 rabbit groups at the end of the plan. These groups will be supported with a technology package (breeding, feeding, husbandry practices, health, credit and market) called pocket package programme. In order to increase the productivity of indigenous animals and birds, a genetically superior 15,500, 2,400 and 45,000 heads of buck, ram and cockerels will be distributed to upgrade the blood level of native doe, ewe and hen of those groups. Of this total distribution, 75 per cent will be retained within the groups and the rest in other areas.

This programme will mainly be implemented in the rural areas with the aim to increase the employment opportunities and income of the poor farmers to help reduce rampant poverty. For this purpose, there are already some potential districts selected so far for each commodity like sheep, goat, pig, poultry, rabbit. These districts will be developed as a resource centers of these genetic material and will be supplied to other district for the same purpose. Along with the genetic material other support services will also be concentrated to these districts whereby the trend of outflow of the local currency will be retained within the hands of rural producers by curtailing the import of those animal in order to supply for meat and breeding purposes. Similar programmes are planned and executed in the case of cattle and buffaloes as well.

Considerations
The main things to be considered for supplying meat during the peak season are; farmers have to know the breeding pattern whereby large numbers can be sold out during these peak seasons, an economically viable meat breed of goat has to be multiplied rapidly and made easily available to the local producers, flow of information regarding the price of meat in different slaughtering places has to be broadcasted regularly. Pre-requisite to establish marketing places must be developed by the government initially and has to make available to the retailers at payback method must be regularised for its maintenance and repairing. A separate wing to deal with marketing management should be established within the Department of Livestock Services to encourage and assure producers for their products.

The Lure Of America

By Bijay Aryal

THE Gorkhapatra daily published on its front page in its March 8 issue a Washington-datelined story titled “Nepalese Doctors are Moving Out to America.” According to the story, 25 doctors from the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital alone are now living in the United States as residents, some of whom are green card holders. It says the number of such doctors from Nepal will go up if we add the numbers outside the TU Teaching Hospital.

The doctors interviewed in the story have given reasons for this flight. Among them are bad government policy, politicisation of health services, a desire to acquire greater expertise, inadequate income in Nepal to support doctors’ families, family expectations from doctors being higher, lack environment to work with self-respect. Not all of them will eventually settle permanently in the USA. Most may.

The news report has published the names of a number of doctors from the TU Teaching Hospital now in the USA. But few of them who have gone there have done so after making a mark back in Nepal. It says, in the past, many doctors did not migrate abroad because things were better for them in their own country. But if a few dozen doctors have migrated out of the country, their numbers have increased in the country in spite of that.

The news story is misleading in the sense that it is not only doctors who have popped over to the US or Europe or somewhere else for greener pasture. No fewer numbers of engineers, computer experts, economists, MBAs and other professionals have gone abroad for better opportunity. The numbers of people in semi-skilled and unskilled occupations stand at much higher figures.

America is a land of opportunity. It is a nation of immigrants from all over the world. Racism here is negligible compared with that in the countries of Europe. It is the mightiest nation on earth today — economically, politically, militarily and in many other aspects. It is a vibrant democracy where rule of law prevails and you can get your rights enforced through law courts. One buck earned there is equivalent to 70 Nepalese rupees here. Such prospects always tempt people in other parts of the world, the more so in South Asia where the largest population of the absolute poor live. Even well-off people outside the medical profession have emigrated to the USA. The sons and daughters of a number of rich people in Nepal have gone to the USA with the intention of settling down there for good. Many have already done so.

Till one and a half decades or two ago, the itch to go abroad for greener pasture had not caught on in Nepal, unlike in other countries of South Asia such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Flocking abroad is a phenomenon of the eighties and the nineties, and this is bound to be even more intense in the first decade of the 21st century. Two decades ago, somebody returned from England used to be known as England-returned and from the USA as America-returned. Nowadays, nobody introduces such a person with such a title, except in a jocular way or ironically. Today, it seems, some relation of every family in Nepal has gone abroad.

It is an international phenomenon not confined to Nepalese doctors alone. Many high-ranking politicians and government officers are making hay in Nepal while their sons, daughters or nephews are living in America or Europe. Nepal cannot hope to match the lure of America and Europe even in the last decade of the 21st century. We have got to accept the economics and sociology of labour mobility. Compared with other Nepalese, the community of doctors here are a breed apart, who can get away with murder.