Abstract

PANDEY, Rajiv. Consumption and Valuation of Livestock Fodder under Different Forest Types of Himalayas, India. Silva Lus. [online]. 2011, vol.19, n.2, pp.207-219. ISSN 0870-6352.

The forest feed to livestock either through collection of tree leaves and grasses or by grazing has significant contribution to the rural households. However, this contribution of forests is overlooked and neither accounted in developmental perspectives nor included into System of National Accounts (SNA). This is primarily due to lack of quantitative information on forest contribution for livestock feed. The present study addresses the issue by capturing the relevant primary information by household survey through pretested questionnaire from 316 randomly selected households engaged in livestock rearing. These households were distributed across 66 villages in the all five forest types of Uttarakhand state, India. The questionnaire contains household attributes, livestock composition, livestock feedstuffs derived from market, forest and non-forest areas. The market and non market approach was used to estimate the price of various livestock feedstuffs used for feeding purposes. The livestock population was defined in terms of adult cattle units (ACU) as per standard definition. The distribution of ACUs per households ranges from 4 to 5 units in the region. The total feedstuff from various sources consumed by one ACU (standard unit of livestock) was 22.27 Kg in Himalayan Moist Temperate Forest; 23.32 Kg in Sub-Tropical Pine Forest; 34.74 Kg in Tropical Dry Deciduous Forest; 22.50 Kg in Tropical Moist Deciduous Forest and 21.60 Kg in Sub-Alpine and Alpine Forest. Proportion wise, the share of non forest, forest and market was 45, 52, & 3; 38, 60 & 2; 97, 0 & 3; 44, 53 & 3 and 30, 68 & 3, in various forest types, respectively. The value of this feedstuffs for the livestock on per ACU was up to Rupees (Rs.) 100 for the livestock reared except for plain areas, where forest share was miniscule. Proportion of value for non forest, forest and market was 47, 32 & 21; 41, 43 & 16; 78, 0 & 22; 48, 34 & 18 and 31, 51 & 18 for the five forest types, respectively. It is apparent that forest contributes significantly for livestock sector and has implications for policy planning for formulation of public policy for poverty alleviation and strongly advocate for inclusion of forest contribution in SNA.

Keywords : Forest biomass; forest feed; ACU; rural livelihood; green accounting.

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