Research Project
Name of the Organization : Tamil Nadu Veterinary and
Topic of Project : Survey on livestock marketing practices in shandy in
periyar,
Tamil Nadu.
Name of the Principal Investigator
: Dr. S. Selvam
Survey on livestock marketing
practices in shandy in periyar, salemand thiruchirapalli districts of Tamil
Nadu.
Efforts have been made to improve
the production quantitatively and qualitatively in the livestock sector. But marketing of livestock and livestock
products, with few exceptions such as milk and eggs, is still to receive the
attention of the planners and policy makers.
The rural producers are a most unorganized lot. The scale of production is small and
scattered. Marketing of livestock is
associated with a unique set of conditions which makes it highly risky and
laborious, besides prevalence of relative imperfection in the marketing
mechanism. Marketing of livestock is
mostly the forced one and under stress.
There is no market
committees or regulated markets available in Tamil Nadu for marketing of
livestock. Therefore, in order to have
an insight to the existing status of the livestock shandies and to study the
strategies of livestock marketing, this study was undertaken in Periyar, Salem
and Thiruchirapalli districts of Tamil Nadu with the following objectives: (a)
to study the conventional pattern of livestock marketing at various places
including the mode of transport to the place of sale, facilities provided
during the sale and detection of fraudulent practices, if any, during the sale;
(b) to find out the bottlenecks prevailing to the livestock marketing in
shandy; and (c) to recommend various remedial measures for improving the
practice of livestock marketing including the legislation for regulating the
sale of livestock in various shandies.
This study was undertaken in the
three districts of Tamil Nadu, viz., Periyar,
The study on temporal distribution
illustrated that the rural buyers can visit four to five shandies per week
within a few hours to select their animals, where the sellers also had an
advantage of marketing their livestock on any day. Further, this kind of distribution had
facilitated the brokers to earn their daily bread by providing a continuous
opportunity for self-employment through livestock marketing.
All the shandies in the study area
were unregulated and under public control, except, Manalmedu shandy of
Thiruchirapalli district which was organized by a private entrepreneur. Shandies belong to rural or urban
administrative bodies, such as “panchayat unions” and “municipalities”. The common practice was to hire out annually
the right to collect entry fee to the private contractors.
The shandies of the study area
seemed to be designed without any approval or appropriate plan for marketing of
livestock species and products. The
shandies were held in the unutilized areas of government or poramboke land
available at or near the places by which the shandies are named after. The location of market / shandy differed in
different places and the area varied based on the availability of land and
arrival of animals. It appeared that the
location and area for the livestock yards have been arbitrarily decided as
there were no criteria adopted while fixing these parameters for livestock
market yard, nor have these earlier been attempted. In most of the shandies, even the soil surface
of the yard was so uneven and with shrubs and thorns.
Fencing around the market yard was
seen in almost every shandy of Periyar district, except Anthiyur shandy. In Salem district Erumapatti, Rasipuram,
Namagiripettai, Tiruchengode, Pallakkapalayam and Mohanur shandies had neither
fencing and gate nor any form of roads inside the shandy. Other shandies in this district had fencing
and gate and roads. In Thiruchirapalli
district out of the 18 shandies, the following 10 shandies had fencing around
the market yard: Pettavaithalai, Thayanur, Ariyavur, Siruvachur, Ariyalur,
Uppidamangalam, Paramathi, Jeyamkondam, Manapparai and Andimadam. The type of fencing was concrete compound
wall around yard. The roads laid inside
the shandy were katcha roads. In most of
the shandies, the roads were not properly maintained and appeared with worn-out
structure, and in some places one could find only the traces or remnants of
path or road. No specially constructed
concrete loading / unloading docks were found in any of the shandies of Periyar
district, whereas Pudhanchandai shandy of Salem district and Manapparai,
Jeyamkondam and Uppidamangalam shandies of Thiruchirapalli district had
built-in loading / unloading dock. In
all the remaining shandies, only heaps of manure mixed with straw or heaps of
sand were being utilized for loading and unloading of animals.
None of the species of livestock was
provided with sheds in shandies of the study area, where only the self-sown
trees provided shade to limited number of animals as well as the owners /
traders involved in marketing. Watering
and feeding facilities for animals were not provided properly in all the
shandies, except the following four shandies: Anthiyur shandy of Periyar
district, Pudhanchandai and Ayothiyapattinam shandies of Salem district and
Uppidamangalam shandy of Thiruchirapalli district, where water troughs were
seen for watering the animals. There
were no permanent or temporary employees of the government or Panchayat employed
to manage the operations of shandies in the study area. Hence, administrative office was found in
none of the shandies.
None of the shandy was provided with
pucca / permanent canteen. However,
makeshift canteens were found available in all the shandies during shandy day.
Water supply either potable for
animals or human beings was not made available and drains for cleaning were not
provided in any of the shandies of the study area, except the shandies which
had water troughs. Besides, no provision
was found for the accessibility to electricity.
Other facilities such as toilets and bathrooms, provision for garbage
disposal, veterinary and medical facilities, banking facilities, post office /
telephones were also found to be absent in all the shandies in the study
area. Manure and garbage disposal were
not done by following any scientific method, and a corner of the shandy was
used for disposing the manure and garbage.
Parking provisions for vehicles was available only in two shandies,
viz., Manapparai and Uppidamangalam shandies.
The weekly arrival of animals found
to vary from 19 (Satyamangalam) to 3410 (Velli Tiruppur) in Periyar district,
whereas in Salem district, it varied from 250 (Mohanur) to 3550 (Morepalayam)
and in case of Thiruchirapalli district, from 120 (Pettavaithalai) to 4300
(Ariyalur). The entry fee levied per
animal was in the range of Rs. 5-20 per large ruminant and Rs. 3-10 per small
ruminant in the study area.
The expected weekly income of the
shandies in the study area was in the range of Rs. 750 – 33750, which varied
depending upon the quantum of arrivals.
Despite this huge income received from the shandy, no matching utility
for the fee collected was added. Even
the very basic infrastructural facilities and amenities such as loading / unloading
dock, water supply were not made available in the shandies. This inturn warrants immediate attention of
administrators and policy makers to review the existing situation.
The method of sale of different
livestock species did not vary much among the districts studied. The sale practices in the livestock shandies
of the study area were mainly through direct negotiation between sellers and
buyers and also by middlemen called ‘brokers’.
Usage of secret-code words to define the market price of animals were in
vogue. Bargaining ‘under cover’ was
prevalent in Thiruchirapalli district, where the bargainers closed their digits
with cloth and negotiate through finger palpation. None of the middlemen was holding an official
license and all were unregistered mediators.
The criteria for price fixation
varied within the species of animals and shandies. The bullocks were judged with many parameters
like breed, dentition, body conformation, shape of horns, skin, shoulders,
eyes, hooves, tail etc. The milch
animals were priced mainly based on breed type, number and stage of lactation,
structure of udder, appearance of milk vein, pelvic girdle, etc. In case of small ruminants, the weight was
assessed by the muscle thickness at loin and thigh besides girth.
Among the middlemen interviewed,
55.3 per cent of intermediaries had only primary education, whereas 23.5 per
cent had secondary education, 21.2 per cent were illiterates. With regard to occupational pattern, 18.8 per
cent of the intermediaries were found to practice brokerage in livestock
marketing as primary occupation and the remaining exercised this function as
subsidiary or leisure occupation. The
middlemen engaged themselves in brokerage for an average of 95 days in a
year. The income pattern studied
indicated that 52 per cent of intermediaries in the study area were receiving
an annual income of Rs. 5001 – 10000, while 32.5 per cent were estimated to
earn more than Rs. 10000 and 15.5 per cent to acquire less than Rs. 5000 by
mediating in livestock marketing.
The main constraints faced by the
buyers, sellers and intermediaries involved in marketing of livestock were
inadequate infrastructural facilities and amenities, inappropriate entry fee,
unscrupulous middlemen and unmatching brokerage, demand driven prices, poor
transport facilities for animals and disease spread. Handling of huge amount of cash in an
unprotected open fields was the major hurdle encountered in annual livestock
fairs, which were organized and prolonged for 7-10 days during temple festival
seasons.
The results of the study indicated
certain policy options that are more appropriate for efficient functioning of
livestock marketing systems. Following
are the policy implications that sprout out from this study:
1)
The
analysis on the area of the market yards indicates that no definite parameter
has been adopted while establishing the livestock market yard. Therefore, a master plan for livestock
markets should be prepared for the State as a whole after a detailed study, as
the market activity is undergoing rapid qualitative and quantitative changes.
2)
The
infrastructural facilities in livestock shandies are far from
satisfactory. Shandies have not been
provided with resting sheds and even shady trees for resting animals. Hence, the importance of livestock should be
appreciated and basic infrastructural facilities such as sheds, water supply,
loading / unloading docks be provided in the market yards.
3)
The amount
realised through auction should be pooled into general funds of local bodies
and a portion is earmarked for the maintenance of market. Keeping in view the inadequacy of the
infrastructural facilities available, it is suggested that the income generated
by the shandies should be earmarked exclusively for the development and
maintenance of the livestock market. In
case of inadequate resources, efforts for resource mobilisation must be made
and State Agricultural Marketing Board may consider granting funds for
development of livestock markets.
4)
The
quality judgement of animals is left to the discretion of the buyer and seller,
who sometimes, may not have the expertise and are likely to be cheated because
of malpractices. As an innovative measure,
it is suggested that the services of the veterinarians may be availed for
evaluation of animals.
5)
By and
large, the system of sale now practised is open negotiation between buyer and
seller (perfect competition). However,
the intermediaries continue to play a major role in livestock marketing through
the system of “secret negotiation”, using code words and finger palpation under
cover. Continuance of this practice is
against the interests of the rural producers, and hence, this should be banned.
6)
In order
to avoid such complications mentioned above, the middlemen must be issued with
valid license for facilitating transactions.
The service of the brokers and other middlemen should be officially
recognised and the charges for their services may be fixed after thorough
investigation.
7)
The study
of entry fee (market charges) levied in shandies reveals that there is neither
uniform pattern, nor any rationale in fixing the rates. It is opined that the market charges should
be fixed uniformly and with subject to revision every year depending upon the
price indices.
8)
It is
essential to bring all the unorderly local body markets under the purview of
Agricultural Produce Markets Act, so as to convert them into orderly
markets. Though there is provision in
the Act for notifying cattle, poultry, sheep, etc., yet they are to be notified
in Tamil Nadu State. Hence, action must
be initiated to notify the same.
9)
It is
necessary to set up a livestock marketing cell under the Directorate of Animal
Husbandry to collect and compile information on marketing of livestock,
livestock products and by-products for designing development activities.
10)
A post of Shandy Veterinary Assistant Surgeon
may be created at Assistant Director’s office who will look after shandies
available in his jurisdiction and prevent the entry of infected animals.