Animal husbandry

Lore & Background

The domestication of livestock was driven by the need to have food on hand when hunting was unproductive. The first wild animal to be domesticated was the dog, half-wild dogs perhaps starting with young individuals, tolerated as scavengers and killers of vermin. Prey animals such as sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were progressively domesticated early in the history of agriculture. In southern Asia, the earliest reliable evidence for elephant domestication dates to around 2000 BC or later. In South America, the llama and alpaca were domesticated probably before 3,000 BC as beasts of burden and for wool.

Reader's Guide

Animal husbandry has been central to human development, enabling the shift from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to settled agrarian and pastoralist communities. Major changes occurred in the Columbian exchange, when Old World livestock were brought to the New World, and in the British Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century, when livestock breeds like the Dishley Longhorn cattle and Lincoln Longwool sheep were rapidly improved by agriculturalists such as Robert Bakewell to yield more meat, milk and wool. In the contemporary era, a wide range of species are raised commercially in large quantities for slaughter, eggs, or dairy. Modern animal husbandry relies on production systems adapted to available land, with subsistence farming being superseded by intensive animal farming in more developed parts of the world. Animal agriculture at modern scale drives climate change, ocean acidification, and biodiversity loss. The practice also includes raising animals for services, such as horses for transport and military tasks, oxen for draft work, dogs for guarding and hunting, and camels for desert travel. The verb 'to husband' means 'to manage carefully,' reflecting the judicious use of resources in raising livestock.

Did You Know?

• The horse industry remained an essential economic sector until the proliferation of motor vehicles after the Second Industrial Revolution.

Institutional Origins and Structural Evolution

The Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying traces its roots to a 1991 administrative reorganization within India's agricultural bureaucracy. At that time, two separate divisions—the animal husbandry unit and the dairy development unit—were pulled out of the broader Department of Agriculture and Cooperation and consolidated into a single standalone department. Five years later, in 1997, the fisheries division from the same parent department along with a portion of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries were folded into this growing entity, broadening its scope considerably. A significant structural shift arrived in February 2019, when the fisheries portfolio was carved out as its own separate department. Simultaneously, a brand-new cabinet-level ministry, the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries, was created, and the restructured department became its subsidiary. This sequence of mergers, additions, and splits over nearly three decades reflects how India's livestock and dairy governance has been repeatedly reorganized to keep pace with the sector's expanding economic importance.

Mandate and the Livestock Census

The department's core mandate spans the entire lifecycle of India's livestock sector: boosting animal production, upgrading genetic stock, building dairy infrastructure, and delivering veterinary healthcare services to support the broader dairy industry. One of its most enduring responsibilities is the periodic livestock census, a tradition stretching back to 1919–20. Every count requires the participation of all states and union territories, making it one of the most logistically ambitious data-gathering exercises in the country. The most recent iteration, the 20th Livestock Census, recorded a total domesticated animal population of 535.78 million, representing a 4.6 percent increase over the previous count conducted in 2012. The census covers every category of domesticated animal, providing a comprehensive headcount that informs policy decisions ranging from feed allocation to disease surveillance. By releasing these reports, the department effectively serves as the statistical backbone for all livestock-related planning in India.

Flagship National Programs

Three major initiatives define the department's programmatic footprint. The National Livestock Mission, launched in 2014–15 under the 12th Five-Year Plan, targets holistic sector development through four sub-missions covering feed and fodder improvement, general livestock development, pig rearing in the North-East, and skill development with technology transfer. The Rashtriya Gokul Mission focuses specifically on conserving and enhancing indigenous bovine breeds; it envisions 14 Gokul Gram cattle care centres across the country, with the first located at Mathura, and operates through two sub-missions for bovine breeding and dairy development. The Government also established the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog under this mission to promote indigenous cow breeds and the income they generate, and in 2021 it launched the Kamdhenu-Gau Vigyan Prachar Prachar Examination in twelve regional languages to spark public curiosity about cow science. Meanwhile, the National Animal Disease Control Program sets an ambitious goal of eradicating Foot-and-Mouth Disease and Brucellosis by 2030, with annual vaccination targets of 500 million animals against FMD and 36 million female bovines against Brucellosis, fully funded by the centre until 2024.

Economic Infrastructure and Digital Market Platforms

Beyond biological and health interventions, the department has built a substantial economic scaffolding for the livestock sector. The Dairy Entrepreneurship Development Scheme, launched jointly with NABARD, offers back-ended capital subsidies of 25 percent for general-category farmers and 33 percent for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe farmers, with a 10 percent mandatory contribution from the entrepreneur. Multiple family members can each establish separate dairy units provided they are sited at least 500 metres apart, and eligibility extends to self-help groups and companies as well. In 2020, as part of the pandemic stimulus, the government created the Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund, a 15,000-crore vehicle designed to channel private-sector and MSME investment into dairy plants, meat-processing units, and feed factories, supporting farmer producer organizations, Section 8 companies, and individual entrepreneurs. On the digital front, the E-Pashuhaat portal organizes the national livestock marketplace by disseminating feed and fodder information, facilitating the sale of bovine germplasm, embryos, and frozen semen, and providing multi-channel communication and transportation coordination. The Ensure portal, operating under the National Livestock Mission, tracks subsidy payments for poultry, small ruminant, and pig-rearing activities.