Relevance of draught cattle power and its future prospects in India : A review

Abstract

Domestic work animals exist in all regions of the world. In India, the energy for ploughing two-thirds of the cultivated area comes from animal power and they haul up to 15 per cent of the total freight in the available 14 million animal drawn carts. Thus the stock of 60 million working cattle and buffaloes were used for various agricultural operations, saving fossil fuel worth Rs 60 billion, annually. With nearly 83 million land holding (more than 75% of the land holding) being less than 2 ha in size, the animal power can play a very important role in Indian agriculture. But the cropping season in India generally lasts for only 30 days during <italic>kharif</italic> and 30 days in during <italic>rabi</italic> or a total of 60 days in a year. Atleast 200 days of work was necessary to get the breakeven point considering the cost of maintenance and market hire rate for draught animals. The annual use of Draught Animal Power should be expanded through haulage and rotary mode of operation for agro processing and electricity generation and the new research findings should be communicated to the farmers through training.