Socio-Economic Profile of Maldhari Dairy Farmers of South Saurashtra Region

Introduction

Dairy farming plays a pivotal role in the economy of our country. It helps in augmenting food supply, generating employment and raising nutritional level. Indian dairy represents one of the largest and fastest growing sectors. Dairy enterprise is a solution to many problems of agricultural, besides being an effective tool to improve socio-economic condition of rural income to farmer.

In Gujarat livestock rearing is predominantly done by Maldhari community.The term “Maldhari” is derived from the Gujarati word ‘mal’ means livestock and ‘dhari’ means guardian.Maldharis are economically backward community. Maldharis derive their livelihood mainly from livestock rearing. The sale of milk and milk products has beenalways the mainstay of their economy. Inadequate knowledge of modern dairy practices and marketing facilities deteriorates the socio-economic conditions of the Maldharis.The recent advances in animal husbandry havedemonstrated that scientific knowledge and their adoption have great potential for maximization of milk productivity. The best option to increase livestock productivity is through adoption of improved technologies and efficient use of available resources.¹ Many socio-economic study revealed that socio-economic parameters viz.education, caste, land holding and subsidiary occupation are playing great role in development of animal husbandry.The systematic approach of study mighthelp in understanding their social parameters and subsequently formulating policy and programmes for their development.

Materials and Methods

Two districts of south Saurashtra region of Gujarat state (Junagadh and Gir somnath) were purposively selected for the study. From each district two taluks were selected and from each taluk three villages were selected for the study purpose. From each village ten Maldhari dairy farmers who possess more than 5 milch animals were selected randomly. Thus, total 120 Maldhari dairy farmers were selected. Personal and socio-economic characteristics of Maldhari dairy farmers were studied using semi-structured schedulewhich was prepared by consultations with extension experts following personal interview technique. The collected data were compiled, tabulated and analyzed to interpret the results. The descriptive statistics like frequency, percentage and range were used for the investigation.

Table 1: personal and socio-economic characteristic of maldhari dairy farmers.

Results and Discussion

Personal and Economic Characteristics of Maldhari Dairy Farmers

Age group of maldhari farmers revealed that majority (70.83 %) of them belonged to middle age group followed by old age and 14.17 per cent were from young age group.² Educational status revealed that 40.83, 23.33, 20.00 and 5.00 per cent of the Maldhari dairy farmers were educated up to secondary, higher secondary, primary and graduate level respectively. The probable reason for this might be that majority of cattle owners were from middle and old age group.³ As evident from the data in Table-1 that 78.33 per cent of the Maldhari dairy farmers were from OBC, followed by 21.67 per cent were from ST category.⁴

Economic status revealed that three-fifth (59.17 %) of the Maldhari dairy farmers belonged to medium level of annual income group, whereas slightly more than one-fourth (25.83 %) had low level of income (<100000 Rupees) and only 15.00 per cent of family had high level of income (>200000 Rupees).⁵

Family size indicated that majority (47.50%) of the Maldhari dairy farmers belonged to the large sized families i.e. above 7 members, while 37.50 per cent of them belonged to medium sized families having 5 to 7 members and only 15.00 per cent of the Maldhari dairy farmers belonged to small sized families having up to 4 members. Majority (70.83 %) of the Maldhari dairy farmers belonged to the joint families and only 29.17 per cent of them belonged to nuclear families.⁶

It was concluded from Table-1 that more than half (54.17 %) of Maldhari dairy farmers had animal husbandry as major occupation along with agriculture followed by 45.00 per cent of Maldhari dairy farmers were performing only animal husbandry occupation while only 0.83 per cent had occupation as animal husbandry along with agriculture and other services. Table 1 also indicated that more than half (53.34 %) of the Maldhari dairy farmers had medium level of participation in extension activity followed by 33.33 per cent and 13.33 per cent as low and high participation in extension activity, respectively⁷ who stated that majority (85.50 %) of the respondents were found to be dependent on farming and animal husbandry. It is apparent from the data of table-1 that 32.50 per cent of the respondents were landless followed by 29.17 per cent of Maldhari dairy farmers were found with marginal land holding i.e. up to 1.00 hectare, 18.33 per cent with small land holding i.e. 1.01 to 2.00 hectare, 08.33 per cent with medium size of land holding i.e. 2.01 to 3.00 hectare and 11.67 per cent of respondents were with large size of land holding having above 3.00 hectare.⁸

It is clear from the Table-1 that more than half (54.17 %) of the Maldhari dairy farmers had no membership in any organization, followed by 38.33 per cent had membership in one organizations and 07.50 per cent of Maldhari dairy farmers had membership in more than one organizations. None of the Maldhari dairy farmers were holding position in any organizations.  It also indicates that more than half (54.17 %) of the respondents were with medium level of experience followed by 27.50 and 18.33 per cent with high and low level of experience respectively in dairy farming.⁹

Sources of information for obtaining information pertaining animal husbandry practices indicated that two-third (66.67 %) of the Maldhari dairy farmers used medium sources of information, whereas 23.33 per cent and 10.00 per cent of them used less and more sources of information, respectively. Heard size shows that 45.83 per cent of the Maldhari dairy farmers had small herd size followed by 43.33 per cent of Maldhari dairy farmer found with medium level of herd size while 10.84 per cent of them had large herd size.¹⁰

Conclusion

Majority of the Maldhari dairy farmers belonged to middle age group, educated up to secondary level and belonged to OBC category, had medium annual income with large size of family and majority of them belonged to joint family, had animal husbandry plus agriculture as main occupation, had medium extension participation and low social participation. Maldhari farmers possessed medium experience in animal husbandry, used medium sources of information and had small size of herd. Socio-economic parameters of maldhari dairy farmers reveals that there is a scope for further improvement in socio-economic status, which ultimately lead to animal husbandry development.

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