Goat-rearing practices and the limited effects of the SHG program in India: evidence from a Tamil Nadu village

Abstract

Livestock rearing has been promoted in India by government-sponsored micro-finance schemes such as the IRDP and the “SHG-Bank Linkage Program, ” providing rural poor with small loans to augment their non-land assets and thereby alleviate poverty. However, even in the case of small livestock such as sheep and goats, although at a glance it seems easy for poor people to rear them by using their only asset, unskilled labor, the reality is contrary and thereby the effect of the micro-finance programs is questionable. Based on intensive field surveys in a village in Tamil Nadu, India, the author sheds light on goat rearing practices among different economic classes and finds that the poor face difficulties in rearing goats. The article tries to analyze why the rural poor cannot rear goats in the way that policy-makers expected and thereby questions the effectiveness of government-sponsored micro-finance schemes in India.