Rayagada district has a huge tribal population i.e. 88% of the entire Rayagada district population. Most of them stay in villages and are below poverty line. Nandabadi village is one such village. The people of Nandabadi mostly depend on seasonal farming and labour works for their income. In the past years, the income level has declined due to the inflation and Covid pandemic. Vulnerability of the community comes from a high level of dependence on rainfed agriculture, which is least diversified, a cotton dominated monocropped system that does not give enough income to farmers. Small land holdings, low agricultural productivity and low incomes have led to rising indebtedness to private money lenders and also leading to migration.

Running a family with shortage in income is a huge road block for them. The life of the tribal community is increasingly vulnerable due to lack of awareness on sustainable income generation activities to their resource base.

MGS has initiated PHDP in the year 2015 at Nandabadi and conducted meetings and held discussion with the community people to address this situation as an issue. After many meetings, the community people came up with a proposal for goat rearing. With an objective to make goat farming a sustainable livelihood among tribal, consent was obtained from villagers and MGS has approved the proposal and funded the beneficiaries for income generating project. MGS has provided them to purchase 5 goats each for 8 beneficiaries. Rearing of goat is easy and can be done by landless laborers, women and children because they can thrive well on variety of leaves, shrubs, bushes, kitchen waste etc. Goats have got increased digestibility of crude fiber and can produce even on poor quality roughages. Goats can be reared as a viable farming activity and may form source of livelihood and additional income for poor people in the villages. Goat farming will create substantial growth for the community and surely will ensure a regular cash flow.