Relationship between profile of the dairy farmers and their management efficiency in animal husbandry practices

Abstract

Animal husbandry in India is an integral part of the agriculture sector and plays an important role in providing employment and income to the rural people. Total milk production in India is 239.30 million tonnes during 2023-24. India ranks 1st in the world in terms of total milk production. Dairy farmers all over the world are working as managers of their own dairy enterprise. In the present study, three district namely; Banaskantha, Mehsana, and Sabarkantha were selected for this study. From these districts, total 6 talukas (2 from each district), 5 villages from each taluka and, 10 farmers from each villages constituting total of 300 dairy farmers were selected for the study. From this study it was observed that majority of dairy farmer were found middle age group (37.00%), education up to primary school (30.33%), medium sized family (60.67%), semi medium farmers (24.33%), membership in one organisation (60.00%), farming and animal husbandry as their main occupation (77.66%), very low herd size (53.00%), medium experience (35.00%), between 11 to 20 litres/day/household of milk production (28.33%), medium level mass media exposure (44.00%), medium level of extension contact (38.33%), low level of economic motivation (53.67%), high level of scientific orientation (43.67%), medium level of performance (60.00%) and medium level of knowledge about improved animal husbandry practices (38.33%). The overall management efficiency was medium management efficiency (47.34%). From relationship, it was observed that education, land holding, social participation, herd size, milk production, mass media exposure, extension contact, economic motivation, scientific orientation and level of knowledge were positive and highly significant; Experience in dairy farming and age were found negative and non-significant; Occupation and size of family were found positive and non-significant relationship with their management efficiency, respectively.