Draught Animal Status in Orissa and its Utilization Pattern in Few Selected Villages

As per the livestock census of 1995, the state registered an increase of 13.95 per cent in cattle and 23.93 per cent in buffalo population over 1987 census. The supercyclone in 1999 caused massive casualties to the lives tock. According to 2001 census, the total cattle and buffalo population was 15.20 million, which showed a decrease of 1.3% over that of 1995 census. The total draught bullock population was 5.17 million with Mayur bhanj district having the highest (4,43,845) and Kendrapara district having the lowest (1754) population. From the survey, it was found that the farmers mostly depend on draught animal power for tillage by MB plough and local plough and threshing by bullock treading. The other operations like seeding/transplanting, weeding and harvesting are manually done. Threshing is partially mechanized. The average annual bullock utilization is 260 hours with 76.89 per cent utilized for tillage in Kharif and Rabi cropand the rest 23.11% is used for threshing of paddy.