Sources of information in adoption of scientific dairy farming

Abstract

The present study was conducted in Jind district of Haryana to ascertain the various sources of information is being utilized by the livestock farmers and to assess the extent of use of various sources for obtaining scientific livestock farming information. A multistage random sampling technique was followed for selection of two blocks, eight villages and 240 dairy farmers. The data was collected through pre-tested well-structured interview schedule and questionnaire. The study revealed that most of the dairy farmers obtained information from veterinary surgeon (93.75%), VLDA (90.88%), progressive farmers (83.75%), and experts from agricultural university (71.43%) regarding various aspects of breeding, feeding, health care and management practices. The study also revealed that most of the livestock farmers acquired the latest livestock information through their respective VLDAs followed by neighbours, friends, progressive livestock farmers and Veterinary Surgeons. Correlation analysis revealed that the sources of information were used by livestock farmers had positive and significant correlation with socio-economic status (SES), occupation, education of respondent, extension contact, mass media exposure, risk orientation and cosmopoliteness-localiteness. Age had negative correlation, while social participation, family education status and annual income were found positive but non-significant correlation with sources of information used by livestock farmers. The R2 value indicated that all the thirteen independent variables fitted in the regression equation had explained about 47 per cent variation towards various sources of information. Further, values of 't' for 'b' in case of SES, occupation, social participation, herd size, mass media exposure, risk orientation and cosmopoliteness-localiteness were found to have positive and significant influence on sources of information used by dairy farmers.