Constraints in buffalo farming in selected agro-climatic zones of Tamil Nadu

Abstract

The study was conducted for identifying the constraints faced by Buffalo farmers in North Western and North Eastern Agroclimatic zones of Tamil Nadu which had more than 50 per cent of total Buffalo population of Tamil Nadu. The top two districts from each zone namely Salem and Namakkal of North Western and Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur of North Eastern were particularly selected for the study. A total of 212 Buffalo farmers based on proportionate sample size with 124 from North western zone and 88 from North eastern zone were randomly selected for the study. Apretested semi-structured interview schedule was used to collect the data. The data collected so was analysed using Garrett ranking technique by ranking the constraints based on the difficulties identified by Buffalo farmers. In this study, the constraints weregrouped under broad categories like Socio-economic, Marketing, Institutional and Climatic constraints apart from managemental constraints. The findings of the study revealed that shortage of labour (69.12) was ranked as ‘first ’under socio-economic constraint followed by exploitation by local vendors (75, 11) was ranked as ‘first ’under marketing constraint. Similarly, under institutional constraints lack of credit facilities from bank (70.45) was ranked as ‘first ’followed by depleting number of water bodies (59.61) was ranked as ‘first ’under climatic constraint. Thus, by under standing the different socio-economic, marketing, institutional and climatic constraints faced by buffalo farmers suitable policies can be framed for betterment of buffalo farmers.