Livestock in the Food Debate - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 509

(2008) reports that in Brazil, the chilling and milking technologies required on farms in
recent years to meet food-safety requirements have made the participation of producers
with less than 100 litres of milk/day per day impossible. About 65% of pigs in China are
still produced by small farms selling between 50 and 500 pigs annually (representing
more than 90% of all existing pig farms). But environmental, health, and safety concerns
have resulted in plans to have 65% of the pigs be raised in large-scale operations produc-
ing up to 50,000 pigs per year by 2015 (Baowen 2008). Similarly, nearly 60% of China's
egg production in 2005 was done on farms with not more than 500 layers. One could
project that small producers of pigs and poultry in rural areas will become consumers in
urban areas, keeping internal demand for pork high.
Despite these pressures, small-scale livestock producers are unlikely to disappear in
the foreseeable future; but they face new challenges, as does the political system. Milk
production in India offers an alternative model. The “white revolution” was orches-
trated by the public sector setup, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), in a
large-scale scheme known as “Operation Flood.” This model has created, starting from
the 1960s, a national milk-collection grid linking smallholders owning one to three
heads of cattle fed on straws and crop residues throughout the country. This unique
smallholder movement has been founded on the capillary establishment of village milk
producers' co-operatives. These grassroots dairy societies procure milk and provide
inputs and services to 80 million members, of which 71% are women. Landless laborers
and small farmers are able to derive a small income from the sale of a few litres of milk a
day (FAO 2007a). In 2011-2012, the dairy unions affiliated with Amul, the iconic Gujarat
Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, procured an average of 970,000 litres of milk
daily from nearly 320,000 producer-members. Assuming only three-fourths to be active
suppliers, contribution would work out to just 4 litres of milk each. Even though subtle
changes in system intensification are taking place because of labor and feed scarcity, the
legacy of village-level cooperative societies will remain the bedrock of the Indian dairy
industry for the foreseeable future (Damodaran 2012).
There is a political argument for the protection of small livestock producers as a dom-
inant part of the sector, even as contrary pressures mount. They clearly take better care
of their animals and feed them with agricultural by-products with less food grains than
large-scale feedlots. They pollute less and make more efficient use of natural resources.
They make use of family labor and create job opportunities for the younger generations
in rural areas. Yet, we often observe that only the top 10-15% of these small farms have
enough resources and technical skills to get the necessary services and take the risks
involved in intensification of animal production (Kitali et al. 2005). Perishable com-
modities such as milk and meat have fluctuating prices, exacerbated by the costly health
and hygiene standards required.
Intensification and specialization of farming can integrate the relatively small number
of “top smallholders” in market-driven value chains. This can be achieved through con-
tract farming with supermarkets or ad-hoc arrangements with the private sector, which
already have process-based food safety and branding systems (IFAD 2004). The biggest
ethical concern should be what to do to support the billions of dispersed and marginal