Herding Hope 2025: National Goat Summit

Herding Hope 2025: National Goat Summit Charts a Smart and Inclusive Future for India’s Goat Economy
Government, private sector, and farmer groups unite to strengthen climate-resilient, women-led goat value chains.

Pashu Sandesh, 18 April 2025 

India’s goat economy took centre stage at the Herding Hope: National Goat Summit 2025, where over 100 stakeholders convened to co-create a roadmap for a smarter, inclusive, and climate-resilient goat value chain. The summit was hosted by Passing Gifts, A Subsidiary of Heifer International, with ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Goats (CIRG) and GIZ India as knowledge partners. It brought together leaders from the government, the private sector, development institutions, financial bodies, farmer-producer organisations, and grassroots entrepreneurs.

India is home to over 148 million goats and 33 million rural households that depend on goat rearing for their livelihoods. Despite this scale, the sector continues to grapple with systemic challenges such as inadequate veterinary care, poor access to quality feed, low productivity, and limited market linkages.

Delivering the keynote address, Alka Upadhyaya, Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, emphasised the vast yet underutilised potential of the goat sector in driving rural transformation. She called for a National Resource Organisation to coordinate knowledge, partnerships, and breed improvement efforts. Citing the success of Black Bengal goat clusters in West Bengal, she advocated for a data-driven, cluster-based approach to enhance vaccination, artificial insemination, and market access. Benchmarking sectoral data, she noted, will spur private investment and enable more targeted, high-impact interventions.

In his address, Dr. Manish Kumar Chatli, Director of ICAR- Central Institute for Research on Goats (CIRG), unveiled the 'Viksit Bharat Roadmap for the Goat Sector'—a visionary strategy aimed at boosting productivity, strengthening resilience, and advancing value chain integration through science-driven, climate-smart innovations.

GIZ India, through Indo-German development cooperation projects like ERADA and AVCERR, emphasised community-centric approaches and convergence of rural development programmes to scale successful livelihood models across states and nationally. Goat, moringa, aquaculture, and mango value chains linking programmes like Mahatma Gandhi NREGA and NRLM, among others, are a few examples.

Throughout the day, expert panels discussed innovative approaches to financing smallholder goat farmers, scaling veterinary and extension services to the last mile, and building resilient value chains through robust partnerships with farmer-producer organisations, the private sector, and traceability solutions. These conversations reinforced the need for convergence between public policy, private capital, and grassroots innovation.

Rina Soni, Executive Director of Passing Gifts, a subsidiary of Heifer Internationalreiterated the organisation’s commitment to placing smallholder farmers, particularly women and youth, at the centre of this transformation. "Our goal is to elevate goat-based livelihoods through integrated models that put women and smallholders at the centre of growth and policy," she said.

Meekha Hannah Paul, Senior Advisor at GIZ India, thanked Passing Gifts, ICAR-CIRG, and all partners for their collaborative efforts in the goat sector. She highlighted the Herding Hope: National Goat Conclave as a significant step in uniting stakeholders. Farhad Vania, Portfolio Management Advisor, GIZ India, emphasised GIZ’s commitment to agroforestry, agriculture, and goat-related projects in India through Indo-German partnerships.

The summit drew participation from key industry stakeholders, including Zappfresh, Licious, Chevon, NABARD, Indian Federation of Animal Health Companies (INFAH), ICAR-National Research Centre on Meat (NRCM), and the Gates Foundation, alongside experienced goat entrepreneurs and technical experts. The perse attendance reflected a growing consensus on the importance of multi-sector engagement in building resilient livestock economies.

The event concluded with a strong call for a national framework that facilitates the convergence of policy, finance, innovation, and community-led action, laying the foundation for scalable, climate-smart, and women-led goat value chains. The framework should also promote Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models, leverage blended finance, and implement de-risking mechanisms to attract investments and ensure the sustainability and resilience of goat enterprises, paving the way for the transformation of rural India’s economic future.

About Passing Gifts – A Subsidiary of Heifer International

Passing Gifts – A Subsidiary of Heifer International supports smallholder farmers, youth, and organisations through consulting, training, and technical assistance in India and beyond. Reaching over 135,000 households in Bihar, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh, it promotes climate-smart, women- and youth-led models in goat farming, backyard poultry, and organic farming, while strengthening Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOS) with enterprise development and market linkage support to thrive and become sustainable.

About CIRG

The ICAR-Central Institute for Research on Goats (CIRG), located in Makhdoom, Farah, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, is a premier research institute under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Established in 1979, CIRG is dedicated to enhancing the productivity of goats in terms of meat, milk, and fibre. Over the years, it has developed and disseminated advanced technologies to benefit various stakeholders.

CIRG also coordinates the All India Coordinated Research Project (AICRP) on goats, which operates across 30 units and focuses on 24 recognised goat breeds throughout the country.

About Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

As a service provider with worldwide operations in the fields of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education work, GIZ works with its partners to develop effective solutions that offer people better prospects and sustainably improve their living conditions. GIZ is a public-benefit federal enterprise and supports the German Government and a host of public and private sector clients in a wide variety of areas, including economic development and employment promotion, energy and the environment, and peace and security.