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Chapter
Water Use and Dairy Production
System: An Indian Experience
G. Letha Devi, Anjumoni Mech, Sejian Veerasamy,
Ravikiran Gorti and Mukund A. Kataktalware
Abstract
Increasing water scarcity and simultaneously growing demands for food and
feed challenge agricultural production. Globally livestock feed sourcing is one of
the major causes for water depletion; therefore, increasing livestock water use effi-
ciency (LWUE) is necessary. There is a need to synthesise LWUE knowledge gener-
ated across different forage based livestock production systems (FLPS) over time
and systematically identify entry points to enhance productive uses of freshwater
resources. Although these systems vary by their degree of intensification, scale of
water-related problems, and therefore in their values of LWUE, a number of com-
mon entry points to increase LWUE can be identified. To understand the pattern of
livestock water use and social dynamics involved in water use and milk production,
around 240 small and medium dairy farms in Karnataka, India, were used for the
present study. Direct and indirect consumptive uses of water by animals considered
were water used for drinking, water inputs through green and dry fodder, consump-
tive water usage for on-farm servicing and crop irrigation and water inputs through
all upstream inputs such as medicines, vaccines and others. Water use efficiency
(WUE) for production of milk alone is operationally defined in this study.
Keywords: water use efficiency, poverty, environment, livestock, socioeconomics
1. Introduction
Water is an essential component that is required in largest quantity by live-
stock. About 80% of animal water requirements is met by drinking water, and
the rest of water needs are met through feed water. Production and reproduction
performance of animals is directly affected by water availability and quality.
Nonavailability of adequate water may cause adverse effects on animal growth and
production. Water resources are shrinking day by day, and it warrants judicious use
of water.
Milk production is challenged by increasing water scarcity and simultaneously
growing demand for food and feed. Globally livestock feed sourcing is seen one of
the major causes for water depletion, and therefore improvement in livestock water
productivity is the need of the hour. Feed sources in smallholder production system
largely consist of grazing, crop residue and concentrates, etc. Extensive smallholder
systems in dryland ecoregions face the major challenge of water depletion for feed
production. This demands better understanding of livestock-water interactions and
designing strategies to improve water use efficiency (WUE).
1
Livestock Health and Farming
Water use efficiency can be defined as the net return for a unit of water used.
Improvement in water use efficiency aims at producing more food, income, better
livelihoods and ecosystem services with less water. There is a considerable scope
for improving water use efficiency of crop, livestock and other allied enterprises
at field, thereby achieving sustainable food production. Water harvesting, supple-
mental irrigation, deficit irrigation, precision water application techniques and
soil-water conservation practices are the bouquet of technology choices that we can
resort to in achieving this goal. Practices not directly related to water management
also impact water use efficiency because of interactive effects such as those derived
from improvements in soil fertility, pest and disease control, crop selection or
access to better markets.
However, we need to be cautious about achieving water use efficiency gains.
Crop water use efficiency is quite high in highly productive regions, and yield (per
unit of land area) does not necessarily correlate with water use efficiency in all
cases. Water reuse within an irrigated area can compensate for the perceived losses
at the field in terms of water quantity, but that will not be of any help in maintain-
ing the water quality. We need to create an enabling environment for enhancing
water use efficiency by farmers in field. Apart from this, we need a thorough under-
standing of the biophysical environment as well as social and economic dynamics
existing between different elements of farm and field.
While identifying priority areas for bringing in improvements in water use
efficiency and formulating strategies and action points for bringing in substantial
improvements in water use efficiency, the following points have to be considered:
(i) high-poverty less water efficient areas, (ii) water-scarce areas, (iii) areas
neglected for development of water resources, and (iv) areas of faster water
resource depletion. However, these are huge challenges to be achieved, and strate-
gies need to be evolved keeping in view complex biophysical, social and economic
factors.
2. Water footprint
Water footprint is defined as the extent of water use in relation to consumption
of goods and services by people. In a broader sense, a country’s water footprint is
the volume of water required for the production of the goods and services used for
direct and indirect consumption by the population of the country. Water footprint
can be of two types: (i) internal water footprint or water used from internal or
domestic resources and (ii) external water footprint or water used to produce
imported goods and services. The USA has an average water footprint of 2480 m3/
cap/year, and China has an average footprint of 700 m3/cap/year. Global average
water footprint is 1240 m3/cap/year. Any country’s water footprint is determined
by factors such as consumption volume (with respect to gross national income);
consumption pattern; climate; and water use efficiency of agriculture and allied
sectors.
The water footprint gives an account of amount of water used to produce each
of the goods and services we use. It can be measured for a single process, such as
growing a crop, for a product and fuel, etc. It also gives an idea about volume of
water being consumed by a country in a specific basin or from a specific source.
The water footprint looks at both direct and indirect water use of a product. It
includes water consumption and pollution throughout production cycle from sup-
ply chain to consumer.
Water footprint can be measured in terms of per unit of goods produced and
per hectare of area under crops or in any other functional units. This also gives us
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Water Use and Dairy Production System: An Indian Experience
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an idea about different uses of our limited freshwater resources and the ways and
means by which they get polluted. If the water is sourced from a water-scarce area,
the impact of low water productivity to high water footprint can be significant and
require immediate attention.
For the purpose of quantifying its use, water can be divided into three com-
ponents: green, blue and grey. The three components together provide a com-
prehensive picture of water use by demarcating water source, either as rainfall,
groundwater, or surface water, apart from freshwater requirement for removal of
pollutants, to make it reusable.
3. Types of water footprint
1. Green water footprint: water from precipitation/rainfall that is accumulated
in deep soil and includes the evapotranspiration component and water incor-
porated by plants. This is the most relevant water component for agricultural
and allied products.
2. Blue water footprint: surface water or groundwater resources and is either
evaporated or incorporated into a product across a temporal and spatial re-
gime. Irrigated cropping, industry and domestic consumption of water falls
into blue water footprint.
3. Grey water footprint: volume of freshwater essentially needed to remove pol-
lutants and make it reusable. This component takes into account point source
pollutants discharged to any freshwater source directly or indirectly or other
diffuse sources.
Livestock plays a vital role in supporting rural livelihoods in the Indian context.
At the same time, there are growing concerns regarding highly water-intensive
operations in livestock rearing, which is considered as one of the major enterprises
for water depletion and putting huge pressure on depleting and water-scarce
resources. In forage-based livestock production systems, be it grazing, mixed-
irrigated or mixed-rain fed, feed sourcing is largely contributed from pasture or
crop residue. In dryland areas of arid and semi-arid ecosystems, extensive forage-
based livestock production systems are in place, and in such situations, water used
for feed production is a major concern. Thus, such situations warrant the pressing
need for understanding the livestock water dynamics and better strategies and
framework for developing comprehensive entry points to improve livestock water
use efficiency.
Based on global experiences from different livestock production systems, the
entry points for improving livestock water use efficiency can be categorised into
different groups, based on their operational limits. They are:
i. Feed water productivity.
ii. Feed sourcing and feeding management.
iii. Livestock feed use efficiencies.
iv. Institutions to create enabling environment, for better water use management.
v. Market linkages for bringing out water saving technologies to consumers.
3
Livestock Health and Farming
4. LWUE in forage-based livestock systems: challenges and
opportunities
In the major forage-based livestock systems like grazing, mixed-rainfed and
mixed-irrigated systems of dryland production environments, the basic objectives
of production as well as intensity of production operations have a great diversity
within and among those systems [1]. This diversity creates many challenges for
water efficiency of these livestock production systems. This creates implications
and prospects at the same time for achieving efficient water use in such production
systems. To elaborate further, dry and green fodder constitute major feed compo-
nent in dryland production systems. Like in the case of the most intensive systems,
say mixed-irrigated production system as practised in India, concentrate feed use
does not exceed 10% [2]. Feed acts as a major interface between water and livestock,
and such diversity in managing feed sourcing and feeding practices poses challenges
and implications for the type, scale of importance and method of quantifying and
strategising livestock water use efficiency.
Strategies to improve quality of locally available feed and feed management are
core to any framework to improve livestock water use efficiency in any production
system. We need to focus on activities like selection of crops, intercropping for
maximum land and water utilisation, urea treatment of crop residues, chopping
of coarse residues, etc. In mixed-irrigated systems, an improvement of feed qual-
ity (from 7 to 8.5 ME MJ kg−1) can lead to saving of >50 m−3 of water/cow/year
[2]. Similarly, in mixed-rainfed systems, urea treatment of crop residues led to a
considerable improvement in livestock water use efficiency [3–5]. While consider-
ing better animal management practices, livestock water productivity (LWP) can
be enhanced, by reducing animal’s energy requirement by means of limiting animal
movement, especially in peak summer seasons. Descheemaeker et al. [3] reported
that in mixed-rainfed systems, approximately 12% of the metabolisable energy of
animals is spent for walking long distances for feed and water. This energy loss can
be avoided by better feed sourcing and feed management.
5. Method of assessment of livestock water use
An effort was made to assess and analyse LWUE in smallholder and commercial
production and to formulate for strategies for improving LWUE. Primary data was
collected from small- and medium-sized dairy farms in Kolar and Shimoga district,
Karnataka, India. The total sample size was 240 dairy farms. The consumptive use
of blue water (direct and indirect) was assessed using primary data through per-
sonal interview and observation in particular farms. Primary data from smallhold-
ers and commercial dairy units in Kolar and Shimoga district of Karnataka, India,
were collected. Water use efficiency (kg/animal) was estimated and compared for
smallholder as well as commercial dairy production systems using the following
formula:
WUE = (Y/U)*100 (1)
where Y = Marketable yield (kg/animal) and U = Seasonal consumptive use of
water (m3).
Water use efficiency for crop biomass used as fodder = Total Biomass/water
applied at different levels of requirement [6] method was used for calculation
of LWP of feed (recommended by the IWMI). Different water wastage points in
4
Water Use and Dairy Production System: An Indian Experience
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different operations were identified, and strategies to reduce water wastage were
formulated using participatory focus group discussions.
The major challenges associated with LWU as perceived by farmers were anal-
ysed and ranked based on rank coefficients. Scarcity of water for livestock drinking,
other livestock operations and feed quality due to low water quality used for crop
production were the major challenges across all the seasons (Tables 1 and 2).
The water intake by animals through forage and other feed ingredients is more
as compared to water intake through drinking water and that used for on-farm
servicing operations such as cleaning, etc. The average direct consumptive water
use by smallholder system was found to be 97 litres per day and 127 litres per day for
commercial dairies. The calculated water use efficiency for smallholder system was
0.85, and for commercial dairying it was 1.62. The water use efficiency was more in
the case of commercial dairy farming and less in the case of smallholder produc-
tion system.
There are various factors affecting water use by livestock. The major factors are
seasons, different weather parameters, fodder, feed and other inputs. The source of
Key LWU-related problems Seasonal variations
Summer Winter Rainy
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
Scarcity of water for livestock drinking ✓ ✓ ✓
Scarcity of water for livestock operations ✓ ✓ ✓
Scarcity of water for feed production ✓ ✓
Inefficient use of available water ✓ ✓ ✓
Soil/nutrient loss ✓ ✓ ✓
Poor feed/fodder quality ✓ ✓ ✓
High feed scarcity ✓ ✓ ✓
Use of common property resources ✓ ✓ ✓
Postharvest feed quality and quantity ✓ ✓ ✓
Table 1.
Problem matrix showing the scale of importance of LWU-related problems across seasons.
Operations Smallholder system Commercial dairying
Drinking 40 52
Washing shed 55 90
Washing animals 25 38
Cleaning cans and other equipment 10 25
Water contained in feed and fodder 743 740
Total 873 945
Milk yield/day/animal 7.4 15.4
WUE = (Y/U)*100 0.85 1.62
Table 2.
Direct and indirect water use (litre/day/animal/kg of milk) and WUE in different dairy production systems
(n1 = 200, n2 = 40).
5
Livestock Health and Farming
Factors Rank
Seasonal variation I
Weather parameters (temperature, rainfall, humidity) II
Fodder, feed and other inputs III
Source of water (bore well, canals, ponds, etc.) IV
Animal conditions V
Animal output VI
Table 3.
Factors affecting water use (ranking; n = 240).
Figure 1.
Perceived water wastage points in summer season (%respondents), n = 240.
water and animal conditions like lactation stage, age and body and health condi-
tions also play a role in water use efficiency (Table 3).
The water wastage points mainly in summer season were identified, which is
presented in Figure 1.
6. Conclusion
Water availability and quality are the major challenges that are faced by the live-
stock and crop production systems in recent times. The observations in the study
show that water inputs through forage and other feed ingredients are more than the
water inputs through drinking water and that used for on-farm servicing operations
such as cleaning, washing, etc. Proper management strategies are highly essential
for sustaining the livestock production systems and meet the food demands of a
growing population with the available water resources, for which water saving
technologies and strategies are the need of the hour.
6
Water Use and Dairy Production System: An Indian Experience
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.91193
Author details
G. Letha Devi1*, Anjumoni Mech1, Sejian Veerasamy1, Ravikiran Gorti1
and Mukund A. Kataktalware2
1 ICAR-National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Bangalore, India
2 ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Bangalore, India
© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
7
Livestock Health and Farming
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