RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DAIRY FARMERS’ CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR ADOPTION OF CLEAN MILK PRACTICES

Abstract

Socio-personal characteristics of the respondents viz- age, education, farm experience, Size of family, herd size, land holding, annual income, extension participation, source of information, risk orientation, economic motivation was studied. A multistage, purposive and random sampling technique was selected for the study. The present investigation was carried out in North Gujarat. Three districts of North Gujarat viz., Banaskantha, Sabarkantha and Mehsana were purposively selected for the study. From each selected district, three talukas and two villages from each selected taluka were randomly selected for the study. Thus, eighteen villages were selected from the nine selected talukas. From each village, ten dairy farmers were randomly selected as respondents. Thus, total 180 respondents were selected for the study. The study aimed to understand the relationship between various independent variables and the extent of adoption of clean milk production practices among dairy farmers. The analysis revealed noteworthy relationships between independent variables and the extent of adoption. Education, extension participation, risk orientation, and economic motivation exhibited positive and highly significant associations with the adoption of clean milk production practices. Similarly, experience in dairy farming, herd size, annual income, and the source of information demonstrated positive and significant relationships with the extent of adoption. Conversely, the size of the family and landholding exhibited positive relationships with the extent of adoption, but these associations were non-significant. Age, on the other hand, displayed a negative and non-significant relationship with the extent of adoption, suggesting that older farmers were not significantly less likely to adopt clean milk production practices than their younger counterparts.