Indian J Dairy Sci 75(2): 190-193 190 SHORT COMMUNICATION Labour absorption in livestock activities in arid Western and Northern region of Rajasthan Arjun Singh Rajput 1 (), Latika Sharma 1 , GL Meena 1 , SS Burark 1 , DC Pant 1 and S Mishra 2 1 Department of Agricultural Economics and Management, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MaharanaPratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur, Rajasthan (313001) 2 Department of Animal Production, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MaharanaPratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur, Rajasthan (313001) Arjun Singh Rajput . () Department of Agricultural Economics and Management, Rajasthan College of Agriculture, MaharanaPratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur, Rajasthan (313001) Email:arjnrjpt@gmail.com Received: 06 October 2021 / Accepted: 02 February 2022 / Published online: 20 April 2022 Indian Dairy Association (India) 2022 © Abstract: In the arid western and northern regions of Rajasthan livestock activity is a complementary activity to farming and it provides much needed risk cover in case of crop failure. The present investigation was undertaken to study the labour absorption in different livestock activities in Arid western and northern regions of Rajasthan. The study was conducted based on primary data. The primary data were collected from the 200 households of 10 villages during year of the 2018-2019. The average utilization of human labour in livestock activities was found 54.48 man-days/animal/year in arid western and northern region. The participation of woman labour in all livestock activities was found more than man labour in all herd size group in arid western and northern region. The annual average human labour absorption was maximum in site preparation activity i.e., 28.76 hours/animal/year for male and 101.63 hours/animal/year for female, then other activities in all size of farms. Keywords: Labour absorption, Livestock activity, Health care, Handling, Site preparation Livestock population status of major milch animal of Rajasthan (In million) was presented in Figure 1. Category wise Labour absorption in livestock activities in arid western and northern region are presented in Table 1. On all the size categories of farmer’s total human labour used in livestock activities was family labour. The annual average human labour absorption in livestock activities in arid western and northern region was 54.48 man- days/animal/year, out of which man labour contributes 12.60 man- days/animal/year while woman labour contributes 41.88 man- days/animal/year. The annual average absorption of man labour was the highest in herding (33.52 hours/animal/year) followed by site preparation (28.76 hours/animal/year) and feeding (12.40 hours/animal/year) while the lowest in health care (3.19 hours/ animal/year) among all livestock activities. In case of woman labour it was the highest in site preparation (101.63 hours/animal/ year) followed by production (61.41 hours/animal/year), watering (57.44 hours/animal/year) and feeding (54.39 hours/animal/year) and the lowest in health care (6.08 hours/animal/year). The annual average utilization of woman labour was higher than man labour among in the all livestock activities in arid western and northern region. It was observed that the women are involved in livestock production activities since a long time. There are some factors i.e. social, cultural and economic that are responsible for women participation in all livestock activities. Because most of the animal farming activities such as fodder collection, feeding, watering, health care, management, milking and household-level processing, value addition and marketing are performed by women. In arid western and northern region, the utilization of human labour for small, medium and large herd category was 71.28 man- days/animal/year, 45.95 man-days/animal/year and 23.81 man- days/animal/year, respectively. It was noticed that the absorption of total human labour in livestock activities (family man and woman) was maximum on small herd and minimum on large farm. There is considerable variation in human labour absorption among the small, medium and large herd category. It was due to some livestock activities i.e. herding and site preparation in which time taken was same regardless number of animals. In case of small farms, average number of animals were 1 to 4 while the time taken for feeding, watering, production, herding and site preparation are almost same whether number of animal is https://doi.org/10.33785/IJDS.2022.v75i02.014