Leaner pastures
Sheep are under an odd kind of attack in Himachal Pradesh, and it’s coming from more than one direction. As the climate shifts, there is more rainfall and snowfall in mountain plateaus in summer. Because of this, high-altitude predators such as bears and snow leopards, which typically retreated to higher ground in this season, are still prowling here.
They are attacking confused sheep, and confounding shepherds. The snow and the rain, meanwhile, destroy the grass and pine needles that the sheep thrive on. The pine in particular is nutritious for sheep, and boosts their immunity.
Caught in the rain and snow, struggling to find their pine needles, all the while clad in coats that are not built for such humidity, the sheep are also dying from disease.
Sagar Singh, 40, of Naggar town in Kullu is among the Himachali shepherds hanging up their sheep-rearing boots as a result. “I am done. I will now focus on farming,” he says.
The last straw for him was losing 40 of his 100 head last year, to a mix of predators and disease. (In a normal year, he says he would lose 10 or 15.)
Singh has since sold 20 of his remaining 60 sheep, and may sell the rest. It makes more sense to focus on his nine acres of vegetable fields, he says.
Singh’s story is reflected in the union government’s Basic Animal Husbandry Statistics report for 2023. Himachal Pradesh, a leading wool-producer, has seen production fall from about 251,000 kg in 2019-20 to 233,000 kg in 2022-23, it states.
As an example of what is causing the decline, Deepak Saini, deputy general manager of the state government’s Himachal Pradesh Wool Federation, points to last summer. “There were two weeks of heavy snowfall and rainfall, at a time when many shepherds had taken their flocks to the highlands. They were stuck there, with the grass either rotting or buried under snow.”
This has been the case for the past three or four years, he adds, which has meant not just a scarcity of wool, but also lower quality of produce. “This makes the wool more expensive, which means that fewer people can afford it,” he adds. “It has led to acrylic getting mixed in with the wool, to make it cheaper. But this is creating less demand for expert weavers.”
Himachal Pradesh’s trademark wool product, the sheep’s-wool blanket or razai, was typically woven so tight, of such pure and thick wool, that it was even somewhat water-repellent. “The synthetic blankets are not as warm or as water-repellent,” Saini says. “But acrylic-free razais are already becoming harder to find.”
There were two weeks of heavy snow and rainfall last summer. Shepherds and their flocks were stuck, with the grass either rotting or buried under snow.
DEEPAK SAINI, deputy general manager, Himachal Pradesh Wool Federation