Role of Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITKs) in Growth and Production of Livestock Sector

Abstract

Livestock sector contributes a major share to the GDP from the overall agricultural GDP. Indigenous knowledge is the precious knowledge of the local people who take benefits from it in various aspects of day to day living including the rearing of the livestock. But the shift from the traditional to modern medicine in the post-independence India has led to negligence towards this unexplored field of knowledge. The documentation of ITKs can provide us huge benefits in conserving and preserving bio-diversity, increase in national economy, patenting of the indigenous preparations etc. ITKs are having various benefits over the allopathic medicines like availability of the raw materials, cost effectiveness, no side effects etc. The constraints faced by the people while using ITKs include the seasonal availability, longer duration in healing, based on hit and trail method, less availability of documented literature etc. Recently the research on indigenous practices has got momentum all over the world including India but the efforts are still in its early stages and only a little portion is documented till now. There is an immediate need to recognize the importance of ITKs and take serious steps for their documentation, preservation and validation.