Segmenting the milk production in the state of Tamil Nadu (India) into homogenous milk zones: A Multi Dimensional Scaling Approach

In this study an attempt was made to segment milk production in the state of Tamil Nadu into homogenous milk zones based on the resource endowments favourable for the development of dairy industry. Based on the results of multi dimensional scaling, four distinct groups of districts were carved out based on their proximity and the districts were identified in different zones. In the first zone, there were seven districts as Kanchipuram, Vellore, Thiruvannamalai, Villuppuram, Pudukkottai, Namakkal and Salem districts. In the second zone there were five districts namely Erode, Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Didigul and Thiruchirappalli districts. The third zone comprises four districts viz., Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Virudhunagar and Nilagiri districts. The districts in the Zone IV included Nagappattinam, Thanjavur, Cuddalore, Madurai, Sivagangai, Ramanathapuram and Kanniyakumari districts. The multiple discriminant function analysis was used to check whether the groups of districts (Zones) are homogenous or not. The results of the Eigen values and percentage variance explained by the three discriminant functions showed that the first function has the highest percentage of variance (77.92 per cent), followed by the second function (21.47 per cent) and the third function has the least percentage of variance (0.607 per cent). These three functions together could explain 100 per cent of the variation and the estimated discriminant functions have effectively discriminated the districts in four zones and the districts in each of the four zones were of homogenous nature.