Livestock is an important occupation of the farm households in the North-Eastern states. However, a large percentage of animals in this part of the country are of non-descript types; less productive and poorly managed. These poor breeds of animals are the source of meat, milk, curd, ghee and other milk products. It provides subsidiary source of income to the farm families. The yield level of such indigenous non-descript animals are very low, even then these animals are the backbone of the rural economy of N.E. region.

The nature of agricultural diversification differs across regions due to wide heterogeneity in agro climatic and socio-economic conditions. Generally, the pattern of agricultural diversification shows a shift from crop production to livestock production during the 1980s to 1990s.

Home-garden-system is an ecosystem of different kind and a common feature of most suburban landscape in many rice farming tropical countries. If these kinds of ecosystems are well maintained, well-developed and used most sustainably; they can contribute a lot to the conservation of biological diversity by lessening the destructive use of the few nature reserves and forest ecosystems remaining.