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Dairy farming plays a very important role in improving the economy of rural India. The study was conducted to explore the socio-economic profile of dairy farmers and farmers feedback about dairy development project. The survey was conducted to study the education status, family structure, education status and management of animals, different patterns of rearing of dairy animals and status of milk production. Data was collected from the 3000 dairy farmers of three states namely Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh during year 2016 .Concentration of poor farmers was relatively high in Bihar (35.5%), followed by Uttar Pradesh (30.9%) and 16.3% in case of Maharashtra. Average family size show 8.74 members per household in Bihar, 6.76 members in Uttar Pradesh and 6.17 members in Maharashtra. Results revealed that majority of the families were nuclear families. Main source of income was agriculture which includes livestock farming. As regards to the size of land owned, nearly 56% of the landowners were Marginal farmers (owning 0.1 -1 ha of land), 23% were small (1.1-2 ha) landowners while about 12% farmers owned above 2 ha of land. Literacy level was higher among farmers of Maharashtra (71.6%) as compared to Uttar Pradesh (65.8%) and Bihar (65.4%). Majority of the farmers followed mixed cropping system, Maximum number of cows and buffaloes were owned by the farmers of Maharashtra i.e. 3.37 cows and 1.42 buffaloes, followed by Uttar Pradesh (1.60 cows & 1.42 buffaloes) and Bihar (1.75 cows & 0.24 buffaloes).Farmers of Maharashtra owned maximum percentage of crossbred cows (90.97%), followed by Uttar Pradesh (83.4%) and Bihar (75.9%).Maharashtra farmers possessed maximum number of upgraded buffaloes (79.4%), followed by Bihar (55.7%) and Uttar Pradesh (51.5%). In study of average quantity of milk produced by cows was higher among the crossbred cows (10.18 litres), in indigenous cows it was (4.47 litres) and 4.23 liters in Non-Descript cows. The data shows the same pattern of milk produced across the three states with slight variation. In buffaloes, the average quantity of milk produced was observed to be higher among the upgraded buffaloes (8.42 litres) as compared to Non-Descript buffaloes (5.17 litres). Respondents appreciated the fact that due to dairy development project by BAIF their family and social status have increased. |
