A review of India's fodder production status and opportunities.

This review paper aims at an in‐depth analysis of the challenges, opportunities, and status of fodder production in India. A comprehensive review of available literature and various reports by govt. as well as non govt. organizations have been done as part of the methodology for preparing the manuscript. India caters to approximately 20% of the world's livestock population and about 17.5% of the human population on just 2.3% of the world's land area. The human population is increasing at a pace of 1.6% per annum, while the livestock population is increasing at a rate of 0.66% per year. Theses increasing human and animal populations are fighting tooth and nail for land resources for food and fodder production, respectively. As a result, cultivated fodders occupy only 4% of the entire cultivable land in the country. Presently, the country faces a net shortfall of 35.6% green fodder, 10.5% dry crop leftovers, and 44% concentrate feed ingredients. The option for increasing land area under fodder cultivation is very limited. Hence, it is big challenge in front of us to utilize the available meagre land wisely with its fullest potential to produce the fodders for the animals. Which could be achieved by adopting suitable cropping systems, incorporation of fodder crops in food and other cash crop‐based cropping systems on rotational basis, production of fodder on degraded lands by adopting fodder‐based agro forestry systems and exploring other options of green fodder like azolla. The cropping system with forage crops provides a potential alternative to overcome the fodder problem as it utilizes the resources more efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]