• In India''s rural economy, the livestock industry is one of the fastest-growing segments.
• It contributed 28% of India''s agricultural GDP and 5% of national income in 2018–19.
• Research demonstrates that women are almost always involved in animal care in rural homes that keep cattle.
• International Day of Rural Women (October 15) aims to acknowledge the contribution that women make to the growth of livestock development.

Women and livestock sector

• Majority of women employed in rural areas (72% of them) work in agriculture.
• Dairy cooperatives had five million female members in 2015–16, and by 2020–21, that number would rise to 5.4 million.
• In 2020–21, women made up 31% of all dairy producer cooperative members.
• Women''s dairy cooperative societies increased in number in India from 18,954 in 2012 to 32,092 in 2015–16.
• However, their contribution to the livestock economy is not as well recognised with the exception of their involvement in dairy cooperatives, particularly in milk marketing.

Challenges of women livestock farmers

Issue with data collection

• Traditional labour force surveys consistently fail to report women''s involvement in livestock-raising.
• Some of the problem in data collection are i) intermittent nature of work done for brief periods of time during the day, frequently done inside the farm, and ii) women''s own responses.
• Additionally, tasks associated with cattle that women performed were combined with domestic chores and took about 3.5 hours.
• Thus, the woman herself might not list "livestock raising" as a source of income.

Solution for data collection issue

• Calculating an augmented work participation rate can be used to correct this mistake.
• This estimate includes women who reported themselves as "engaged in domestic duty" or care work for the majority of the year but spent time on specific activities.
• This estimate is also included women who reported themselves as engaged in economic activity.

Underestimation of women in livestock sector

• According to the Employment and Unemployment Survey of 2011–12, 12 million rural women were employed in the livestock-raising industry.
• But roughly 49 million rural women were involved in keeping cattle.
• In other words, four times as many women as the official estimate worked in the cattle sector, making up a sizable portion of the rural population.
• This conclusion is supported by data from India''s first national Time Use Survey from 2019.
• 11% of rural women, or 48 million women, were involved in animal rearing when all activities performed in the previous 24 hours were taken into account, like cooking etc.
• As per data by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies in Karnataka, a woman spent at least two hours a day caring for animals in every family that possessed a milch cow.
• Additionally, older, less educated women in the village worked raising animals.

Issues in National Livestock Policy (NLP) of 2013

• The National Livestock Mission (NLM) of 2014–15 was established to advance the livestock industry.
• Its goal was to increasing livestock production and productivity in a sustainable manner.
• The empowerment of women was one of the objectives of this policy.
• It shows that over 70% of the labour for the livestock sector is performed by women and that.
• It emphasises on feed and fodder accessibility, offering extension services, and enhancing financing availability to livestock farmers.
• However, NLM does not, suggest any plans or initiatives tailored especially for female livestock farmers.
• It suggests that the State government set aside 30% of the money from federally funded programmes for women.  The 30% quota is not justified.

Other Issues

• Recent employment surveys, including the Periodic Labour Force Survey, fail to capture information on the precise activities of people who work mostly at home.
• Consequently, the underrepresentation of women in the livestock industry persists.
• Extension programmes for female livestock farmers are still mostly inaccessible.
• 80,000 livestock farmers were trained nationwide in 2021. But it''s unclear how many of them were women.
• Only a few women in each village reported receiving any information from extension workers.
• It was difficult for women in low-income households to obtain loans for the purchase of livestock since they had no collateral to give the banks.
• Under the Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) scheme, around 15 lakh new KCC were given to livestock producers during 2020–2022.
• However, there were no information on how many of them were female farmers.
• Women who raised cattle lacked technical expertise in animal breeding and veterinary treatment.
• Men were almost often the ones to take care of these particular chores and artificially inseminate the animals.
• Women were ignorant about the composition and functions of dairy boards
• Additionally, women from Scheduled Caste homes who were landless or from low-income peasant families were rarely heard.

The livestock industry relies heavily on women labour. However, women who work with cattle are still uncounted in official statistics, which makes them invisible today. Therefore, women ought to be involved in all decision-making processes and the growth of the livestock industry.