Biomass Crises in India: The Case of Fodder

It is customary to talk of the crisis of fodder. As a representative see the editorial by Sunita Narain. A search on “fodder crisis in India” will throw up thousands of links, virtually all of them echoing the same litany. The impression they convey is one of widespread and persistent shortage of fodder. How grounded in reality are these assertions?

A perusal will suggest that such claims are usually anecdotal in nature, based on field trips and restricted to specific regions of the country. Virtually no data is ever presented. There are some studies and estimates which assert that availability of fodder is less than the requirement. What does that mean? If there are fodder deficits should it not reflect somewhere – prices, population numbers or reduced production?

If indeed there are shortages - how does one measure them? An economist would reply – look at prices. It would be a good way to start if we have time-series data for the country and individual regions of the country. I could not find them.

However, if fodder shortages have been persistent (for decades) as has been argued, we should see it being reflected in the number of livestock. The table, below, gives some figures.

(Million Numbers)
Species	1951	1961	1972	1982	1992	2003
Cattle	155	176	178	192	205	185
AF Cattle	54	51	53	59	64	65
Buffalo	43	51	57	70	84	98
AF Buffalo	21	24	29	33	44	51
Total Bovins	199	227	236	262	289	283
Sheep	39	40	40	49	51	62
Goats	47	61	68	95	115	124
Others	8	9	10	13	16	16
Total	293	335	354	420	471	485

Source : Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries, New Delhi. AF=Adult Female
(Extracted from here. See the link for more details including notes and data for intervening years)

A few noteworthy features:

• Total livestock has increased by 60 % during the period – an annual compound rate of approximately 1 per cent.


• Among bovins the rate of increase is much higher among buffaloes especially adult female than cows. This is interesting since buffaloes are heavier, eat more and yield more milk with higher fat content.


• Goats have increased faster than the total but not much more than buffaloes. It is cattle which have lagged the overall rate. In fact, total numbers have actually declined in the last 15 years.

The increase in livestock numbers doesn’t suggest any fodder shortages far less a crisis.

It may be argued that the high increase in the population of goats may be a reflection of fodder crisis. Goats are hardier and able to survive on resources out of bounds for and unpalatable to other animals. This is unlikely for though goats have increased faster than average the rate is not very different from that of adult female buffaloes. Further, all populations have increased – goats being the fastest. So it is not as if goats are substituting other animals. Others too have increased. So overall goats may not be replacing other animals.

The evidence about numbers is not conclusive as it may be argued that the fodder crisis does not reflect in reduced numbers of animals but makes them less healthy and less productive,

So let us examine production of livestock products. The most important product and for which the most reliable statistics are available is milk.

Year	Million Tonnes
1950-51	17
1960-61	20
1970-71	22
1980-81	32
1990-91	54
2000-01	81
2005-06	98

Source: Economic Survey 2006-07

For details on wool and meat look here and here.

The figures hardly deserve any elaboration. They speak very loudly. It is interesting that the rate of growth of milk production accelerates after the 1980s when one would have expected fodder shortages to hurt more. Over the past 55 years while livestock population has grown at 1 % per annum milk production has grown by 3.3 %. In other words while livestock numbers are up 60 % milk production is up almost 500 %. Livestock numbers have not only increased, but livestock has become more productive.

This put a serious doubt on the theory of fodder crisis.

So where could the fodder to meet increased population and production have come from? Undoubtedly agriculture would have played a big part. Overall all crops have grown at 2.5 % per annum since the early 1950s and fodder availability would have increased concomitantly - both from residues and direct production. Note that crop output has risen faster than livestock numbers and milk production even faster. Animals are eating quite well. There was also reduction in requirements as mechanisation took hold in several animal-using operations. This probably explains the decline in overall cattle numbers. In the past two decades tractors have spread to non-traditional states. What about common pastures and forests? We can’t be sure as information on fodder availability from these lands is sorely lacking.

Suffice it to say there never was nor is a fodder crisis in the country. State-level data suggests a similar picture.

Nevertheless it is probably true that some regions face periodic shortages, maybe a few even chronic ones. And certain groups such as pastoralists especially nomadic ones may have lost permanent access to pastures and thence to fodder.

But a crisis for the country as a whole? Definitely not.

Livelihoods in Sariska: A Comment

In a recent article Shahabuddin et. al. raise very pertinent issues regarding eviction and rehabilitation of people from the Sariska Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan. On reading the article my attention got drawn to the results of the fieldwork done by the authors.

To quote:

The average household economy, based on livestock grazing and milk sales, literally subsists on the edge. While the average gross annual income per household is approximately Rs 48,175 (Table 4), the average household spends approximately Rs 18,000 every year on farm fodder and commercial fodder. Therefore, the average annual disposable household income is approximately Rs 30,190. A significant share of the average gross household income goes toward healthcare (on average Rs 8,500 per household per year). That leaves approximately Rs 27,000 per household annually as expenditure on food which works out to an average of Rs 350 per capita per month. In terms of proportions, about 50 per cent of household expenditure is on food, 21 per cent on commercial fodder, 11 per cent on farm fodder and 16 per cent on medical care. The economy of the average household is debt-ridden and precariously balanced, highly vulnerable in the event of natural disasters such as drought.


Now if one subtracts Rs. 8,500 from Rs. 30,190 one doesn’t get 27,000 but Rs. 21,690. Maybe it is just a typo. However, neither Rs. 21,690 nor Rs. 27,000 is 50 % of the gross (48,175) or net (30,190) agricultural income. Similarly Rs.18,000 (the amount spend on fodder) is not 32 % of either 48,175 or 30,190. The numbers don’t quite add up.

The households also spend Rs 8,500 per annum on medical care which is unbelievably high – 28 and 18 – per cent of net and gross income, respectively. Even the absolute figure seems very high. Note that there is no expenditure on transport, clothing or any other household item. And though the households are debtors they don’t pay any interest and do not seem to repaying the principal as well!!

The numbers relate to one year, there is no measure of dispersion and no comparison with other villages in the district or in the state.

The authors describe the households as debt-ridden (no figures, though) and state:

By way of livestock, each household among the 190 surveyed owned nine buffaloes, one cow and 12 goats, on average. While goats comprise as much as 54.65 per cent of total livestock holdings, buffaloes make up 40.09 per cent. For the villagers, goats form a liquid asset because they can be sold easily at any time of the year. Herds are commonly doubled each year.

A simple calculation would show that the value of livestock alone, as listed above, would add up to a couple of lakhs of rupees. Add to it value of the house, land and other assets the households would have to borrow absurdly large sums to be net debtors. What on earth would they be doing with such funds? Trading on the stock exchange?

Finally, read the last line again. …………………. . it would put hedge fund operators to shame!!!

On wage employment the authors say:

People said that the income sources are more diverse today than about 15 years ago due to the fact that people have started going out of the area in search of employment. Most people spend four to six months of the year working in nearby cities – mainly Bhiwadi, Jaipur and Bharatpur.

For the 190 households surveyed the total wage income is estimated at Rs. 5,88,100. The number of adults (>18 yrs) in these households is 631. Assuming that only one adult per household works in the nearby cities and does so for 125 days (5 months @ 25 days per month) we get a daily wage rate of Rs. 25 which is an absurdly low figure.

Some of the problems in the study may due to carelessness. However, the article also highlights the pitfalls of relying on recall data using questionnaires without independent corroboration. The internal inconsistencies in such responses are not always as easily apparent as in this particular case.

History of Deforestation

In an earlier post I had examined the notion that industrial demand, in particular that for railway sleepers, was the major factor in the deforestation starting the second half of the 19th century.

Is it just a matter of historical curiosity? Not so, certainly to some. Ramachandra Guha calls the coming of the railways the “crucial watershed in the history of Indian forestry”(pg. 92.) He sees it as leading, among other things, to extensive destruction of Indian forests, to The Forest Act (1878) and associated policies and what followed as a result – conflicts and agitation by forest users and dwellers in various parts of the country.

This argument finds its way in a recent article on the contemporary matter regarding the definition of forests. The article traces the history of Indian forests to the coming of the railways and discusses how it paved the way for land use change and the decimation of wildlife.

While I am not convinced about railways being an important factor, did things change materially with the coming of the British? What was happening in the pre-British period, say from 300 years before their arrival? Specifically:

• Was there extensive deforestation?

• Was there extensive hunting and serious depletion of wildlife numbers?

• Were there conflicts over the use and control of natural resources?

In other words was there continuity or was there change?

Deforestation in India

In the Introduction to the book Battles Over Nature, the editors Vasant Saberwal and Mahesh Rangarajan remark:

“…..That there has been a steady decline in the extent of undisturbed forest cover in the country over the past two hundred years is widely accepted. The causes for this decline are less widely accepted, although there is general agreement on some factors – the British demand for timber to meet demands imposed first by the British Navy and then by the building of the Indian railways; the demands from the two world wars; the post-Independence provisioning of forest resources to industry at highly subsidised rates. On these counts there is little debate…….” (emphasis added)

Note the term undisturbed forest cover. What exactly does it mean? The term is not defined in the book and to the best of my knowledge is not a standard forestry term capable of easy or unambiguous interpretation. Disturbance probably relates to human interference or use. This can cover a wide range of activities – from clear felling to a walk by a human being. Saying undisturbed forest cover has declined is so non-controversial and irrefutable that it is frankly quite useless. Who could disagree with such a claim?

Surely the use of the term is not a slip but deliberate. Why would the authors do so? For if the word undisturbed is removed and the same causes are ascribed the proposition becomes interesting and can be debated. Why are the authors playing it so safe?

It is very likely that few people would disagree that there has been extensive deforestation in the last 200 years and it was not merely a decline in undisturbed forests. If so how do we explain it?

The authors are content to state the reasons and the topic is not discussed in the book. A useful, well-regarded and oft-quoted source for such views is the book The Use and Abuse of Nature by Madhav Gadgil (MG) and Ramachandra Guha (RG). Additional references can be found in these two books.

It would be fair to claim MG and RG largely agree with the reasons listed in the opening paragraph (in fact they may have provided the basis for the claim cited above).

In their book MG and RG discuss the reasons at some length. Take the British era first. They trace “The Early Onslaught on Forests” (pg. 118) on the British demand for timber for shipbuilding. They say that colonial supplies including from India accounted for a large part of the merchant fleet built up by the British. However, this tells us precisely nothing about how this was affecting Indian forests. For that requires an estimate of timber extracted and area affected by such operations. There is nothing on that. And though a large proportion of wood used by shipbuilders may have come from colonies (as claimed by the authors) it implies nothing about how big or small an impact it made on the forests of the colonies.

They then discuss the felling of trees to make railway sleepers. They also present some data for the same. MG and RG also quote several accounts on the destruction that such extraction caused though those read as examples of bad forestry practices more than anything else (pgs.120-122).

Data on felling of trees for obtaining sleepers is presented but the numbers are too few and far between. There are a handful of figures from Madras and Yamuna Valley (pages 121-122). However, there are no figures for multiple years for these or other regions and none whatsoever for the country as a whole.

How then can one form an opinion about what was happening in India in the second half of the 19th century. One needs at a minimum time-series for a reasonably long period of time aggregated over the country. The British kept meticulous forest records and it is surprise that that such data is not analysed or presented though admittedly it would be a tedious exercise to collate and put it together for the whole of India.

In addition to perusing forest records the approximate requirements for railway sleepers can be worked out by an alternative method. Start from the length of railway tracks and using the number of sleepers required per km for new tracks and for replacement estimate the total number of sleepers required per annum. Next work out the number of trees required based on average yield of sleepers per tree. And finally using average density of sleeper species per hectare work out the likely area harvested.

The authors do mention some of these factors but don’t take the steps to build such estimates.

Let us do a small exercise using some data used in the book. Footnote no. 4 on pg. 122 mentions an annual requirement of 1 million sleepers (in the 1870s) and on page 121 one can derive an estimate of 7 sleepers per tree (250,000 sleepers from 35,000 trees). So a million sleepers would require 1,50,000 trees. Assume 5 trees were obtained from each hectare and that the rest of the area got completely denuded. We can thus estimate 30,000 hectares of deforestation per year. This simple and limited exercise indicates the meagre loss due to sleepers compared to the total forest area in the country which would have been at least 80-100 million hectares.

It is also odd that demand for wooden sleepers as a reason for deforestation drops off the list in early 20th century and also in independent India. Surely the Railways needed millions of them. Non-wood sleepers are a recent innovation.

For independent India they mention paper mills as a case in point. All that the authors provide is an account of paper mils going farther and farther away from their plant sites to obtain raw material. That, however, doesn’t help us understand the extent of India-wide deforestation. There is virtually no data. Interestingly a table on page 196 (reproduced below) gives a completely different impression.

The Loss of Forest Area for Various Purposes between 1951 and 1976

Purpose                                        Area(thousand ha)
River valley projects                 479.1
Agricultural purposes                2506.9
Construction of Roads                57.1
Establishment of industries       127.2
Miscellaneous purposes            965.4


However, there is something which is even more galling. This is the lack of discussion of regeneration. Even if trees were cut it doesn’t automatically imply permanent loss of forest-cover as trees grow back and the forest cover is restored. Even barren land is rapidly colonized. Hence accounts of deforestation necessarily need to account for what prevented regeneration.

It is hence impossible to accept the authors’ contention and the generally accepted notion about the reasons for deforestation in India. The evidence is anecdotal at best and the data is scanty and selective.

In fact a proper analysis of demand for wood including timber ought to start with pre-British times and then compare rates of deforestation over time. Was there a break with the past and did the trend change or accelerate and when. Finally other possible reasons ought to be considered. For example construction, furniture and fuelwood to name only three sources also contributed to demand for wood. Surely these factors need to be considered in any analysis.

It is also important to distinguish two tendencies. One, that land got diverted to other uses – agriculture, roads, towns, dams, factories, etc. - so there was a permanent loss of forest land. Two, that forests were degraded - loss of forest cover.

Clearly there is insufficient evidence to accept the commonly accepted hypothesis regarding deforestation. The industrial demand for wood (both under the British and independent India) may or may not be responsible or causing or accelerating deforestation. There could have been other forces at play.

That there is little debate shouldn’t imply that the matter is settled. It may well be that not enough work has been done and not all factors examined closely. A comprehensive account of deforestation and its causes still remains to be provided.