Livestock is essential to human civilisation and supplied many needs. Since ancient times, animals have provided food, power, and manure to humans. They helped humanity survive at the time. Domesticated for hunting, the animals were later employed for transportation, farming, and food. Animal energy has been utilised for ploughing, tillage, transporting agricultural produce, etc. Over time, humans developed implements to use animals efficiently. However, with advancement of technology different efficient power sources like engines and electric motors made the agricultural activities easier and less time consuming. Tractors and power tillers have almost replaced farm animals from agricultural activities. In extremely remote and hilly areas where machinery fail, poor farmers rely solely on animals. Again, small sized agricultural land and topography also affect agricultural machine efficiency. Moreover, machine overuse harms soil microbiology and fertility. In recent times, again people are more concerned about the organic products and organic farming requires animal power and dung as fertilizer. Hence, farmers are returning to old acquaintances for farming. The Indian government has also promoted indigenous cow breeds like Red Sindhi, Sahiwal, Tharparker, and others whose male offspring can be used as animal power. Considering animal ethics and cruelty, animal-friendly equipment must lessen animal pain and be efficient in agricultural activities. Animal-drawn implements developed by agricultural scientists have shown promising outcomes when used instead of machine-operated implements. There is still potential to improve animal-drawn equipment and machines' utility, efficacy, and ease of use.
Animal Power, Mechanization, Indian Agriculture, Animal drawn equipment
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