Farmers have to choose animals which can survive and perform optimally under the existing agro climatic conditions by utilizing the locally available feed and fodder resources in a sustainable way with least health problems. The breed suitable to one area may not be suitable for another area. The nature of small production and marketable surpluses of these farming units essentially depend on live stock draught power right from village to transportation of produce to the market as a viable and cost effective model. The use of draught animals has implications for fuel requirements, conservation of fossil fuel and ecology. The animal draught power is a renewable, nonpolluting, environment friendly source of energy.

Livestock enterprise, complementing the crop production is perhaps the only hope for the economically fragile population in the post-liberalization era. The small and marginal holdings have very little marketable surplus of the crop output but their cash needs for both purchased inputs and family needs have been increasing in leaps and bounds. Livestock enterprises have the potential to generate surplus by not only utilizing the by-product of crop farming, but also to supply valuable manure for crop farming and provide productive employment to the family labor during off-season. One cannot deny the fact that the Indian livestock industry can boast of its “White Revolution” to match the much acknowledged “Green Revolution” on the agricultural front. Nevertheless, the development focused more towards dairy farming with an emphasis on improving the quality of milch animals. However, the benefits have once again eluded the marginal and small farmers because of high maintenance cost compared to local breeds of cattle. Though crossbreeds have the high genetic potential of production, they are unable to express fully due to environmental stress, low quality feed and fodder and high susceptibility to diseases. With the introduction of exotic breeds, many new diseases like Theileriasis, Tuberculosis and Infectious Bovine Rhinotrechitis (IBR) etc also emerged. Due to soft hoof, many of the pure exotic cattle and crossbreeds are suffering from foot rots. They are unable to survive and produce optimally under low input conditions of the majority of the rural areas. The increased use of modern techniques in animal production without desired level of veterinary health care and feed and fodder resources have resulted in sub optimal performance of crossbreeds. In contrast, our indigenous breeds of cattle are bale to convert available poor qualities roughages like paddy and ragi straw into milk whereas exotic breeds like Holstein Friesian and Jersey require concentrates and quality fodder. Indigenous cattle also produce better milk yield by improving the feeding and management Some Deoni cows at NDRI, Bangalore are producing about 9-11 kg’s of milk per day. With improved care and management one can increase milk production in indigenous cattle substantially. According to surveys, the average milk production of crossbreeds in Karnataka is less than 5 litres in-spite of feeding concentrates, though in milch shed areas like Bangalore, Kolar, Tumkur and Mysore many crossbreeds produce more than 15 litres per day. Exotic breeds struggle to adapt to Indian climatic conditions. With the introduction of exotic cattle crossbreeds milk production increased but resulted in need for high level of management and inputs, increased demand for balanced feed which benefited the feed manufacturers, emergence of new diseases resulting in demand for new medicines and vaccines which benefited pharma giants. Indiscriminate crossbreeding led to loss of biodiversity.