Regional Disparities in Forage Availability in India

India supports nearly 537 million livestock animals – roughly one-fifth of the world’s cattle population – yet the land available to feed them is severely limited and unevenly distributed. The country occupies just 2.3% of the world’s land area while housing close to 20% of global cattle. This fundamental mismatch between livestock numbers and forage resources is not uniform across the country. Some regions have enough – even surplus – fodder for their animals, while others face crippling shortages that worsen every time the monsoon underperforms. Understanding these regional disparities is essential for anyone working in livestock management, dairy development, or agricultural policy.

The national forage deficit: setting the context 🔗

Before examining regional patterns, it is important to understand where India stands at the national level. Research from the Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute (IGFRI) estimates an overall national deficit of approximately 11% in green fodder and 23% in dry fodder. When it comes to concentrate feed – the energy-dense supplements critical for milk production – the gap widens to nearly 29%. What this means in practice is that livestock across the country are consistently underfed, and actual milk yields from cattle have been reported at 26-51% below achievable levels due in large part to poor nutrition.

These national averages, however, mask a more serious problem. According to ICAR’s All India Coordinated Research Project on Forage Crops, out of 55 identified micro-regions in the country, only 12 have a fodder surplus, while the remaining 43 face deficits of varying severity. Regional and seasonal shortfalls are far more consequential than the national average because forage – heavy, bulky, and perishable – cannot be economically transported across long distances.

Zones with relatively better forage availability 🔗

Western Himalayan zone 🔗

The Western Himalayan zone, covering states like Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, and Uttarakhand, is one of the better-placed regions for forage. Studies indicate that more than 60% of the actual need for green fodder is met in the Western Himalayan zone, supported by forest grazing, alpine pastures, and moderate rainfall. Livestock here have access to natural grasslands, tree-based fodder, and seasonal crops. However, this advantage is partly offset by rugged terrain, which limits cultivable land and makes fodder distribution difficult within the zone itself.

Upper Gangetic Plains 🔗

The Upper Gangetic Plains – covering the central and western parts of Uttar Pradesh – is an intensive agricultural zone with high cropping intensity and well-developed canal and tube-well irrigation. This region also exceeds the 60% green fodder availability threshold, benefiting from wheat straw, berseem, and maize fodder as primary feed sources. The irrigated cropping systems here produce significant quantities of dry crop residue that doubles as livestock feed. However, even in this relatively better-off zone, the availability of quality green fodder remains seasonal and uneven throughout the year.

Eastern Himalayan and East Coast Plains zones 🔗

The Eastern Himalayan zone and the East Coast Plains and Hilly Zones also report dry fodder availability exceeding 60% of requirement. States like West Bengal and parts of the northeastern region benefit from higher annual rainfall, diverse cropping systems, and forest-based forage resources. For dry fodder specifically, the availability of rice straw, maize stover, and other crop residues is comparatively higher in these regions due to intensive paddy cultivation.

Trans-Gangetic Plains: the Punjab-Haryana advantage 🔗

Punjab and Haryana, which make up the Trans-Gangetic Plains, stand out among Indian states for their relatively well-managed fodder supply. Nearly 8% of the total cultivable area in Punjab and Haryana is dedicated to fodder cultivation – far above the national norm. Intensive agriculture, high irrigation coverage, and strong cooperative dairy infrastructure mean that shortages here, while present, are far less severe than in other parts of the country. However, for green and dry fodder combined, the Trans-Gangetic Plains still report availability of only 40-60% of requirement, meaning even this agriculturally advanced region falls short of meeting full livestock demand.

Zones with severe forage deficits 🔗

The arid and semi-arid western region 🔗

The starkest forage shortages occur in the arid and semi-arid zones of western India – primarily Rajasthan, and large parts of Gujarat. In the remaining zones of the country – which includes most of the arid, semi-arid, and plateau regions – forage availability falls below 40% of requirement. In Rajasthan, the situation is particularly acute. The Indian arid zone spans 32 million hectares and has historically experienced agricultural drought once every two to three years. When the monsoon fails, the region depends entirely on buffer stocks and relief supplies to sustain its 28 million livestock.

In drought-hit areas like Bundelkhand, fodder is grown on less than 2% of cultivable land – compared to 8% in Punjab-Haryana. This structural underinvestment in fodder cultivation, combined with erratic rainfall, creates a chronic shortage that intensifies sharply during dry years. Land degradation, water scarcity, and frequent droughts have pushed the fodder situation in semi-arid regions close to famine-like conditions, forcing rural communities to migrate in search of feed and water for their animals.

Central and southern plateau regions 🔗

The Central Plateau and Hills (covering Madhya Pradesh, parts of Rajasthan and UP) and the Western Plateau (covering Maharashtra and adjoining areas) fall in the 40-60% green fodder availability bracket – moderate on paper, but severely strained in drought years. In major dairy-producing states such as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, the gap between demand and supply is notably wider, and drought years push the deficit even deeper. Maharashtra’s Marathwada region has been a repeated flashpoint, where consecutive droughts have led farmers to resort to distress sale of cattle simply because they cannot afford to feed them. In drought-hit states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Karnataka, the inability to feed livestock has forced farmers into distress cattle sales.

Southern plateau and western coastal zones 🔗

States like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala face a different kind of constraint. In Kerala, the primary challenge is land scarcity – farmers simply cannot allocate more area to fodder cultivation. In Karnataka and other southern states, limited awareness of government subsidy programs for fodder seed production and poor livestock extension services compound the shortage. Sorghum stover is the main feed resource in the semi-arid regions of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and the Bundelkhand region of UP, constituting 20-45% of total dry roughage in a normal monsoon year – and climbing to 60% during drought years.

What drives these regional disparities? 🔗

The uneven distribution of forage across India is not random – it follows predictable patterns linked to irrigation access, rainfall reliability, cropping systems, land use, and livestock density. Water availability varies enormously across the country: the Indo-Gangetic Plain benefits from perennial Himalayan rivers and vast groundwater reserves, while peninsular India depends on seasonal monsoon rainfall and faces hard-rock geology that limits groundwater access.

Crop residues account for 64% of total livestock feed in India, which means states with high cereal output naturally produce more dry fodder as a byproduct. Punjab and UP, with their wheat-rice systems, generate large volumes of straw. Conversely, states with low cropping intensity or land under dryland farming produce far less residue. The mismatch is further deepened by the fact that livestock rearing among landless and marginal households depends heavily on common property resources such as grazing lands, forests, and fallow lands – resources that have been steadily declining across India due to urbanisation, encroachment, and overgrazing.

How drought deepens the crisis 🔗

The regional disparities described above represent the baseline situation in normal years. In years of deficit rainfall, the picture deteriorates sharply. When monsoon rains fail in arid zones, communities become entirely dependent on buffer stocks, and migration of people and animals in search of fodder, food, and water becomes a common feature. During the severe Gujarat drought of 2002, over 5 million of the state’s 7.2 million cattle were affected by acute fodder scarcity, and milk production fell by approximately 50% in drought-affected districts.

Prolonged droughts, erratic monsoons, and rising temperatures have severely affected seasonal fodder crops like berseem and maize – two of the most important green fodder sources in northern and central India. Fodder prices spike drastically during these events: fodder costs in drought-hit UP rose from ₹1,500 to ₹2,500 per tonne within months, making livestock maintenance economically unviable for small and marginal farmers. Traditional coping mechanisms – such as the Karai and Pachawa fodder storage systems used in Rajasthan’s hot arid zone – provide some buffer, but they are insufficient at scale.

Bridging the gap: emerging approaches 🔗

Addressing regional disparities in forage availability requires both short-term relief and long-term structural change. The surplus of dry fodder in some regions suggests that redistribution and better market linkages could partially offset shortfalls elsewhere, but transport costs and infrastructure gaps limit this approach. At the farm level, community-based fodder cultivation on common land – as demonstrated in Tonk district, Rajasthan – shows promise. Villages that have identified common land for collective fodder production have been able to reduce their vulnerability to shortage.

On the technology side, unconventional fodder crops such as spineless cactus (Opuntia ficus indica), hydroponic fodder, and azolla are being promoted in arid and semi-arid regions where conventional crops cannot grow reliably. Incentivising farmers to cultivate green fodder crops and exploring alternate production models such as hydroponic systems are among the policy directions being discussed. India’s dairy cooperatives, including established models like Amul, have the organizational scale to lead fodder planning by setting up local fodder banks, supplying seeds to members, and integrating feeding advisory services into their networks.

The regional imbalance in forage availability is not a problem that can be solved by a single intervention. It is rooted in geography, climate, land-use history, and economic inequality. But understanding where the surpluses and deficits lie – and why they exist – is the essential first step toward building a more equitable and resilient livestock feeding system across India.

What do you think? Given that only 12 out of 55 micro-regions in India have a fodder surplus, should national livestock policy focus more on zone-specific fodder production targets rather than national averages? And as droughts become more frequent, can unconventional fodder crops like cactus and hydroponic systems realistically replace the role of traditional seasonal green fodder in deficit regions?

References

1. https://arccjournals.com/journal/asian-journal-of-dairy-and-food-research/DR-2050
2. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/igc/24/1/26/
3. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2025.1676298/full
4. https://aicrponforagecrops.icar.gov.in/
5. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/coverage/agriculture/drought-of-fodder-52671
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7. https://baif.org.in/fodder-resources
8. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/agriculture/india-needs-agreen-fodder-revolution
9. https://benisonmedia.com/problems-in-fodder-seed-production-in-india/
10. https://www.britannica.com/place/India/Agriculture-forestry-and-fishing
11. https://www.lrrd.org/lrrd19/2/ali19027.htm
12. https://disaster.shiksha/natural-disasters/drought-management-gujarat-2002-crisis-insights/