Crossbred Cattle Adoption and its Implications on Raising Employment in the Smallholder Dairying of Rural Assam

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using cross-sectional data of 245 smallholder rural dairy farmers and propensity score matching, the present study attempted to estimate the treatment effect of changing the breed of cattle (indigenous to crossbred) on changes in labour use in Assam. The analysis indicated that crossbred cattle adopters had higher herd sizes, access to extension services, membership of dairy cooperative society (DCS) and the majority of them are beneficiary of government dairy development programme. The estimation results show that crossbred cattle adopters had significantly higher labour use for selected dairy farming operations. This points out that there was a higher employment prospect in the adoption of crossbred cattle. Additionally, the study pointed out that crossbred cattle adoption was associated with higher employment effect on small to average size farms and farm households with literate farmers. The findings of the study recommend that there is a need for adequate diffusion of breeding technology such as artificial insemination (AI) or deployment of pure-breed exotic bulls in not so easily accessible areas to facilitate the small and medium farmers with crossbred cattle adoption for generating employment along with augmenting productivity and income.