SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS AND CONSTRAINTS FACED BY DAIRY FARMERS

Abstract

Socio-economic status of farmer is the position of an individual on the socio economic scale, which is determined by a combination of social and economic factors such as education, income, occupation, herd size and milk production. The present study was conducted in Banaskantha, Sabarkantha and Gandhinagar district of North Gujarat. The data was collected from 180 dairy farmers from 18 villages of selected districts by personal interviewing. The result revealed that majority of dairy farmers were (78.89 per cent) in middle age group, (79.99 per cent) educated up to high school to graduate level, (81.67 per cent) were engaged in dairy farming along with agriculture, (70.00 per cent) had medium level of experience in dairy farming, medium level of knowledge and adoption about recommended animal husbandry practices. They had medium level of extension participation and mass media exposure and majority of them had received one training in a year regarding on scientific dairy farming. With regards to socio-economic characteristics the majority of dairy farmers (41.67 per cent) were in medium to big farmer category, (57.22 per cent) had small sized herd and economic motivation.