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AP asked to shed plan to ban goat-rearing

Our Bureau

VIJAYAWADA, Oct. 29

THE Andhra Pradesh Government should give up the idea of imposing a ban on goat-rearing in the State, as lakhs of families, mostly belonging to the scheduled tribes in the backward areas would be rendered jobless, Mr P. Jamalaiah, the General Secretary o f the AP Sheep and Goat Breeders' Welfare Association, has said.

At a meeting of the association here on Sunday, convened to oppose the proposed ban, he said though ostensibly the ban was intended to protect the environment, it would in fact only serve the interests of the MNCs which would dump meat in the domestic ma rket. He said the State Government was labouring under the misconception that large-scale goat-rearing would lead to overgrazing and degradation of the environment. Several studies had contradicted the general impression and the two commissions appointed by the earlier governments had categorically stated that smugglers and industrialists were causing more harm to the environment in the agency areas than goats.

Experience abroad had also shown that banning of goat-rearing and sheep-rearing would in fact adversely affect the environment and countries such as Israel, Pakistan and South Africa had learnt the lesson. He said there were 56 lakh goats in the State an d 1.30 crore sheep and for the past six to seven years the rural poor had taken up goat-rearing enthusiastically, as agriculture was not very profitable.

Mr Jamalaiah said the State Government had, in fact, earlier formulated a scheme for integrated development of sheep at a cost of Rs. 86 crore and it had now changed its policy. He criticised the decision of the State Government to wind up the sheep bree ding farm at Mamidipalli near Hyderabad and hand it over to a government agency for setting up a computer hardware centre. The move had been challenged by the association in the High Court, as it would adversely affect the Deccan breed in the Telangana r egion.

He urged the State Government to arrange insurance cover to shepherds and goat-herds and to allot wastelands for sheep-rearing. Credit should be given more liberally by the co-operative banks to the sector, he pleaded.