The Asian Journal of Animal Science

B. L. Balaraju ¹, Prakash Khandekar ², Mahesh Chander ¹, H. Dileep Kumar ¹, Prakashkumar Rathod ¹

Affiliations
1 Division of Extension Education, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar, Bareilly (U.P.), IN
2 Division of LES and EE, National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology, Adugodi, Bengaluru (Karnataka), IN

Abstract

An ex-post facto and exploratory study was conducted to assess the training needs of small ruminant (sheep and goat) farmers as perceived by them and field veterinarians with a sample size of 120 farmers and 66 field veterinarians in Davangere district of Karnataka state. A semi-structured pre-tested interview schedule was employed for small ruminant farmers and questionnaire for field veterinarians to collect the primary data in the study area. The training needs of small ruminant farmers in major six areas viz., breeding, feeding, health care, housing and management, marketing and finance and products preparation were assessed from the perspective of farmers and veterinarians. Within major areas of small ruminant farming, farmers and veterinarians perceived higher level of training needs in health care followed by feeding and marketing and finance. The study revealed that majority of the field veterinarians' perceived higher extent of training needs for the farmers than farmer themselves. Independent 't' test values depicted that veterinarians perceived higher extent of training needs for farmers in health care, products preparation and housing and management but farmers perceived higher training needs in marketing than field veterinarians.

Keywords

Training Needs, Ruminant Farming, Field Veterinarians.

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H. Dileep Kumar ¹, Rupasi Tiwari ¹, Rakesh Roy ²

Affiliations
1 Division of Extension Education, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar, Bareilly (U.P.), IN
2 Darjeeling Krishi Vigyan Kendra, (U.B.K.V.), Kalimpong (W.B.), IN

Abstract

Socio-personal and socio-economic characteristics influence the accessibility to the resources, participation in decision making, livelihood pattern, standard of living etc. Most of the studies conducted hitherto in the social perspective on pig farming primarily focused on the traditional backyard pig rearing system. Very little was known about the social aspects of pig farmers engaged in commercial pig farming, due to relative newness and geographical scatteredness of this enterprise. Thus, the present study was designed to study the socio-personal and socio-economic characteristics of commercial pig farmers and their influence on production performance of pig farms in India. The cases of 100 commercial pig farmers across five states in India were interviewed using structured interview schedule. The study revealed that most of the pig farmers belonged to middle age group (67%) and were literates (83.00 %). The major religion followed among respondents was Hinduism (73%) and majority of them belonged to other backward classes (38 %). Majority had small land holding (36.00%) and small herd size (42 %). The annual income of most of the respondents (47 %) was found to be Rs.4-8 lakh. Production performance score was given to each farm based on some important production parameters (body weight of boar and gilts at first breeding, body weight of fatteners during marketing, body weight of boar and gilt at 6 months and average litter size at birth). Correlation between the production performance and some important socio-personal parameters was found positive and significant.

Keywords

Socio-Personal Profile, Socio-Economic Profile, Production Performance, Pig Farmers.

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