Livelihood Security through Goat Farming in Tribal Areas of Rajasthan

Abstract

The aim of present study was to assess the livelihood security of tribal farmers of in Rajasthan. We observed food, economic, health, education, social and overall livelihood security through goat farming. A total of 120 tribal goat farmers were selected from 12 villages from 6 blocks in 3 tribal dominated districts viz., Banswara, Dungarpur and Udaipur. Ten farmers from each village were selected purposively based on the number of goats. The selected goat farmers were grouped into three categories based on flock size as small (<25 goats, N=60), medium (26-50 goats, N=36) and large (>50 goats, N=24). In case of small farmers, table-2 revealed that the highest percentages of respondents were having very low level of livelihood security i.e. 43.33 per cent. At the same time, it was also found that 35.00 per cent were having medium level of livelihood security and 13 respondents (21.67%) were having high level of livelihood security, in the study area. In case of medium size farmers 50.00 per cent of the respondents were having low level of livelihood security and 33.33 per cent of the respondents were having medium level of livelihood security followed by 16.67 per cent respondents falling under high level of livelihood security. Similarly, 58.33 per cent of large famers fall under low level of livelihood security and 29.17 per cent of large farmers fall into medium level of security and only 12.50 per cent large farmers are having high level of livelihood security in the study area.