The Goat Trust believes that any intervention in small livestock development must be planned keeping the farmer at the centre. The following five pillars provide support to the livestock rearing activity in order to make it sustainable for the farmer.
It is one of the most important pillars of goat livelihood development for farmers. Natural factors such as breed and weather/season as well as man-made factors such as housing, feed, healthcare and husbandry have a significant role to play in the production process which Goat Trust catalyses the production process through various interventions aimed at achieving sustainable production. Following are the major interventions of The Goat Trust in this direction.
The Goat Trust has a team of qualified researchers and multi-disciplinary technical experts including veterinarians, livestock management experts, social scientists etc. The in-house experts pave the way for the existing knowledge & technologies available from research institutions for them to be used as required by target beneficiaries. The primary areas of work here are Feed technology development, Alternative healthcare development, Early sex determination and breeding, Low-cost housing development. Know More
Kids Nursery is a breakthrough concept propagated by The Goat Trust. Besides strengthening the goat value chain by preserving and rearing best quality goats under controlled conditions, it has also provided for increased income generation for landless families as well as Pashu Sakhies. Besides, it also helps in bringing about high Feed Conversion Ratio-FCR), Breed Conservation, and semi-stall fed production. Under this program, trained women goat farmers procure 5 to 10 goat kids and rear it under optimum management conditions. This is to facilitate good growth in kids and earn significantly through the sale of such sturdy and quality goats and bucks. Know More
Pashubajaar.com is a livestock trading and services arm of The Goat Trust. The primary focus is on providing quality breeds of goats and other small livestock at a Farm Fair Price. Through our dedicated team and advanced technology, we ensure the identification and availability of top-notch breeds, giving farmers access to the best livestock for their needs. Besides, it provides the farmers with reliable information on saleable surplus goats through our Pashu Sakhi network. Using a unique coding system, we connect farmers with potential buyers, facilitating smooth and transparent transactions. Know More
Televet Care Center is a dedicated referral service for goat farmers providing technical information on goat rearing, raising, livestock business counselling, information on local pharmacy and medicines, consultation on ayurvedic, homeopathic and proven ethnovet practices. It also has a provision for app based disease history and recording. A scheduled follow up is also provided on request for the farmers. Know More
Extending or mobilizing finance for the farmers is probably the most important step in establishing a goat-based livelihood system and making it self-sustainable in the long run. The Goat Trust aims at mobilizing funds for the business by making it robust and bankable. In this view it provides service of Pashudhan Bank, Micro-leasing services, Community-based goat insurance etc.
Pashudhan bank provides both financial and non-financial services to the goat farmers. Goat farmers had been acquiring productive assets by leasing their goats with the landlords or the moneylenders. The financial product identified is based on ‘banking on hooves and wings’ and it involves leasing of quality goats and birds, small livestock asset-based credit limit (based on existing herd strength for feeding, housing improvement), community Insurance services, goat rearer’s group-based saving opportunities. The above financial services are integrated with non-financial services such as preventative and first aid health services, information exchange on sale and purchase, price estimation through periodic live body weight, pro-poor technology demonstration, linkage with input supplier, facilitation in collectivization of marketable surplus and so on. Know More
The Goat Trust has been able to pilot and standardize the micro-leasing process for small livestock like goats and ducks, working with communities in and around its Training & Research Centre. Micro-leasing has been proven to be a more suitable and sustainable business than micro-credit while working with small livestock holders. Know More
Community insurance is a mechanism for mitigating individual risk through collective contribution to a corpus. It is a risk management option for the poor farmers against unforeseen losses. Supply side issues such as less premium, remote location of villages, and difficulties in verifying claims discourage insurance providers from reaching out to the rural households exist. Demand side issues such as complex registration and complicated formats, low awareness of livestock insurance, and high cost of claim exist. The Goat Trust and its partners on the ground have been offering insurance to goat farming families in semi-arid regions of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand. Know More
Institutions are both cushions as well as a springboard for goat-based livelihood systems. They provide the required support for propelling the goat-based livelihoods to attain better incomes for farmers, while keeping the values and ethos of the system intact. The Goat Trust aims at training, capacity building and handholding the community as well as individual farmers in making goat rearing a thriving and profitable business. In the process, The Goat Trust has been able to build decentralized, community-led and managed and self-sustainable institutions to promote and strengthen goat-based livelihoods. A few institutions promoted and supported by The Goat Trust are
Goat Rearing Groups or GRGs are micro-level associations of goat rearers in a village or a couple of villages which are responsible for engaging the community in mobilizing and utilizing local resources for the development of goat rearing into a sustainable business prospect. GRGs facilitate the aggregation of goat rearers and their produce to take advantage of economies of scale and collective bargaining. GRGs help facilitate monetary services such as working capital and fixed capital for goat rearing activity, establish market linkages, and control quality standards of goat rearing. Know More
Bakari Paalak Paathshaala is an experiential learning platform created in each village with a membership of 20 to 30 goat rearing families. It aims at changing goat farming practices by identifying key local goat farming issues and working together to resolve those. Detailed manual tools and games have been developed to identify problems in goat farming and finding solutions together with goat farmers in an informal learning setup. An array of 16 major learning exercises is facilitated through flex based games. The exercise consists of members sharing the problem statement and solutions for the same. Subjective and objective assessment of solutions into simulating situations decide the future course of action. Know More
The market of Goat is underdeveloped with arbitrary animal pricing and limited market for other goat derived products. The Goat Trust is trying to bring the goat rearers into the center of goat based value chain by establishing market linkages between producers and consumers, transparency in pricing, making quality breeds available, and developing market for standardised goat based products such as milk, milk based soap.
To ensure transparency and standardisation of prices which are reasonable and acceptable to farmers as well as traders, The Goat Trust has pioneered in devising a live body weight based pricing of goats in India. This is to develop and facilitate easy-to-use saleable goat information collection and dissemination system at local level. We promote and facilitate Live Body Weight based pricing of goats in order to bring in transparency in the entire process of sale of goat and income generated through it. Know More
Caprico is an inhouse brand of whole goat milk promoted by The Goat Trust. It was established considering the various health benefits that goat milk comes with and the demand among consumers for it especially during Covid and dengue spread. It is a widely known fact that goat milk serves as an immunity booster for immunity compromised persons and is an excellent source of easily digestible nutrients and fats. The popularity of cow and buffalo milk among urban consumers has long restricted the availability and consumption of goat milk in the market.But slowly people are realising the benefits of goat milk and are willing to give it a try. The Goat Trust envisions to develop a proper goat milk supply chain from farmers to consumers as a promoter and marketer of the same. In this pursuit we are providing an income stream for farmers and a reliable goat milk brand for consumers. Know More
Duenna is an umbrella brand under The Goat Trust where we manufacture soaps and cosmetic and therapeutic products made out of goat milk. The Goat Trust had long been playing with the idea of effectively utilising goat milk for using it for value added products. It was not until the year 2022 that The Goat Trust zeroed upon the idea of making soaps and cosmetics using goat milk. This was based on various factors such as increasing market size of natural products based cosmetics and skin products in India, popularity and affinity of indians towards natural and nature inspired products and most importantly the value it generates in terms of price and Know More
Building capacities of rural youth and women to help attain the sustainability of goat livelihoods and making it a profitable business proposition for rearers is one of the most important interventions at The Goat Trust. Our capacity building programs are custom-made for goat rearing women as well as rural youth for goat-based entrepreneurship and workforce development for goat farms.
We have created a community cadre of women known as Pashu Sakhies, who are community women trained in structured classroom environment & provided field experience to handhold the other goat farmers in her community to adopt better goat management practices. Basically, she is a goat rearer herself who adopts, advocates, demonstrates, and disseminates the knowledge from classroom and field experiences for the improvement in goat rearing as a livelihood activity in the region Know More
Community Livestock Manager(CLM) is a category of community cadre from among the livestock farmers who aspire to grow small livestock farming into a robust business model. S/He is trained through a rigorous course programme in order to provide linkages for input and output services for goat farming and support Pashu Sakhies on ground in facilitating the change. Know More
A buck entrepreneur is a progressive farmer who facilitates timely provision of bucks for mating purpose. The buck is usually bought against a loan. The buck entrepreneur also works as a local resource person to handhold goat farmers and breeders with necessary information and knowledge on best breeding techniques with the help of Pashu Sakhies on field. Know More
