Socio-economic status and constrains confronted by goat and goat farmers in Saurashtra region

Abstract

A field investigation was carryout conducted to assess the constraints faced by the goat farmers in Saurashtra of Gujarat, India. A well designed questionnaire was administered to 120 goat farmers randomly selected from three major districts of Saurashtra include Rajkot, Junagadh and Jamnagar and one small costal district Porbandar. The aim of this study was to describe the economic, social and nutritional importance of goat farming in the Saurashtra region and to identify critical constraints and opportunities for use in future development initiatives. The present study showed that majority (95.83%) of heads of households were males, of which 44% were middle age (31-50) and 66% of theme were have animal husbandry as primary occupation. Most respondent have major constrain in feeding were lack of green fodder availability (75.83%) and reduction of grazing land (64.17%). In constrain of breeding major problems were repeat breeding (82.50%) and indiscriminate breeding (68.33%) while in health care main problem was abortion problem (86.67%) which may leads to high kid mortality (80.83%). Majority 91.67% of the goat farmers reported that less demand of goat milk and 89.17% said low price of milk was casing marketing problem. Hence, by developing good extension practices with awareness plan will leads to improvement of socio-economic status, which ultimately lead to small ruminant animal development.