Adoption behaviour of dairy farmers in Co-operative Farming Systems^#

R K Ghosh, A Goswami and A K Mazumdar

Department of Veterinary & Animal Husbandry Extension Education
West Bengal University of Animal & Fishery Sciences
68, K. B. Sarani, Belgachia, Kolkata- 37, India
arunasisvet@yahoo.co.in

# Based on the MVSc thesis of the senior author

Abstract

The present study was carried out in the Gaighata and Bagdah block of North-24 Pgs district, West Bengal. From each of the  two blocks, 10 Village Level Milk Co-operative Societies were selected randomly. From each of the selected milk co-operative societies four dairy farmers were selected randomly out of which both Member Co-operative Society (MCS) and Non-member Co-operative Society (NMCS) were two in number. In this way, farmers from 60 Member Co-operative Society and from 60 Non-member Co-operative Society (total 120 respondents) were selected. The direct face-to-face interview method was followed for the purpose of data collection.

The study revealed that all the communication variables were significantly correlated with adoption of improved animal husbandry practices in NMCS whereas mass media communication, personal local sources and personal cosmopolitan sources were significantly correlated with adoption in MCS. Among socio-economic variables, age and education of the respondents were significantly correlated with adoption of improved animal husbandry practices. Communication source and knowledge about de-worming were the key variables that directly and indirectly influenced the adoption of improved animal husbandry practices in MCS and NMCS, respectively.

Key Words: Adoption, animal husbandry practices, dairy farmers, co-operative society.

Introduction

Adoption of any improved technology involves a process in which awareness is created, attitudes are changed and favourable conditions for adoption are provided. Wilkening (1953) described the factors at family level that influenced the process of adoption over a period of time. How recent is the knowledge of a dairy producer about various animal husbandry practices such as breeding, feeding and management of milch animals determines largely the success or failure of a dairy enterprise. In this context, milk co-operatives have quite ambitious objectives. They not only want to increase the productivity of milch animals but also wish to raise the economic status of rural people at large through increased milk production. To enhance the production potential of our milch animals distributed through out the length and breadth of our country the only way is to introduce improved animal husbandry practices for mass adoption and to create the critical and necessary infrastructural facilities. The adoption behaviour of the dairy farmers depends on education, knowledge, attitude, risk orientation and innovation proneness (Bhople and Thakare 1994; Kunzru and Tripathi 1994). Considering these factors, a study of adoption behaviour was carried out to determine the selected socio-economic, socio-psychological and communication characteristics of the dairy farmers in relation to adoption of some selected animal husbandry practices, and the key variables that influence the adoption of improved animal husbandry practices.

Materials and Methods

Gaighata and Bagdah blocks of North-24-Parganas in West Bengal were selected for the present study. From each of the two blocks, 10 village level milk Co-operative Societies (25%) from Gaighata Block and 20 (25.6%) from Bagdah Block were selected randomly. >From each of the selected milk co-operative societies four dairy farmers were selected randomly out of which both Member of Co-operative Society (MCS) and Non-member of Co-operative Society (NMCS) were two in number. In this way, 60 Member Co-operative Society and 60 Non-member Co-operative Society (total 120 respondents) were selected. Before proceeding to final data collection, a pilot study was carried out and accordingly appropriate changes in the construction and sequence of the interview schedule were made.  The schedule was administered to the respondents and the responses were recorded.

Data were collected through face-to-face interview by the researcher himself. In the present study, the adoption was measured by the adoption index method developed by Dasgupta (1968). According to him adoption index is referred to as "Years of use of adopted applicable practices" i.e. it not only takes the number of practices adopted by a livestock owner into consideration but also the number of years he / she has been using each of the adopted practices. The adoption score, according to this index, is derived for each livestock owner by adding the number of years used each of the applicable practices. The figure so obtained is then divided by the number of practices applicable to the farm. For example, if a livestock owner adopted two out of six practices applicable to the farm and has been using one practice for ten years and the other for eight years, then he / she is assigned an adoption score of:

(10+8)/ 6 = 3

The eight selected improved animal husbandry practices were: AI, vaccination against contagious diseases, de-worming, cultivation of green fodder, feeding of green fodder, of concentrates, of colostrum [to the calf], of straw-urea-molasses mixture).

Pearson correlation coefficients between adoption of selected animal husbandry practices and the independent variables (Socio-economic, Socio-psychological and Communication) were calculated for the two categories of dairy farmers (Member Co-operative Society and Non-member Co-operative Society).

Results and Discussion

In the case of the members of milk co-operatives (Table 1), the relationship between the dependent variable (adoption of selected animal husbandry practices)  is in agreement with Sarkar and Bandopadhay (1996) and Bhattu et al (1998) for age, with Murty (1967), Hussain (1968)  and Halyal (1968)  for education of the livestock owners, with Kunzru and Tripathi (1994) for farm power and innovation proneness, with Gupta (1976), Tripathi and Kunzru (1992) and Sharma (1994) for attitude towards dairy farming, with Sarkar (1981), Tripathi and Kunzru (1992) and Bhople and Thakare (1994) for  risk orientation, with Choubey (1972), Chouhan (1979) and Singh (1982) for knowledge about AI, de-worming, feeding of green fodder and feeding of concentrates, with Ranganathan and Joysankara (1976), Sawant et al (1979) and Nataraju and Channegowda (1984) for mass media communication, and with Ranganathan and Joysankara (1976) and Sarkar (1981) personal cosmopolitan sources,  and communication sources, and  house-type and personal local sources. Similar relationships were noted in the case of Non-member respondents.

The results in Table 2  for Member Co-operative Societies represent the direct and indirect effects for 24 selected exogenous variables on adoption of selected animal husbandry practices.

Innovation proneness had the largest direct effect followed in descending order by utilization of communication source, knowledge about de-worming, attitude towards dairy farming, education of the respondent, risk orientation, knowledge about concentrate feeding, green fodder feeding and AI, occupation, material possessions, land,  house type, caste, farm power, family educational status, family type, family size, urban contact, economic status, age, personal local sources, personal cosmopolitan sources and mass media communication. The residual effect was 0.224, in other words 22.4% of the total variability has been left unexplained.

Further processing of the data reveal that out of 24 exogenous variables, 12 had their largest indirect effects through utilization of communication source (caste, education of the respondent, family educational status, land, house type, material possession, economic status, innovation proneness, mass media communication, personal cosmopolitan sources, personal local sources, and urban contact). On the other hand, seven variables (attitude towards dairy farming, risk orientation, knowledge about AI, deworming, green fodder feeding, concentrate feeding and communication source) exerted their largest indirect effect through innovation proneness. Similarly, mass media communication influences three variables (age, family size and family type). Occupation and farm power had the largest indirect effect through attitude towards dairy farming and personal cosmopolitan sources, respectively.

The findings suggest that communication sources not only exert the largest direct effect on adoption of improved animal husbandry practices by the dairy farmers of Member Co-operative Society but a number of factors also exert their largest indirect effect through it. So communication source has come out to be the key element, which directly and indirectly promotes the adoption of improved animal husbandry practices in the case of dairy farmers in Member Co-operative Society. Chug (1986) also suggested that mass media exposure of the farmers was significantly influencing the extent of adoption of technology.

The results in Table 3 represent the direct and indirect effects for exogenous variables on adoption of selected animal husbandry practices in the case of Non-member Co-operative Societies.

The data reveal that knowledge about de-worming has the largest direct effect on adoption of improved animal husbandry practices in case of dairy farmers of Non-member Co-operative Society followed in descending order by innovation proneness,  mass media communication, economic status, personal cosmopolitan sources, family size, occupation, knowledge about concentrate feeding, risk orientation, family educational status, age, education of the respondent, personal local sources, urban contact, material possession, house type, caste, attitude towards dairy farming, knowledge about green fodder feeding, knowledge about AI, farm power, family type, land, communication sources. The residual effect was 0.196, in other words 19.6% of the total variability has been left unexplained.

Further processing of the data revealed that out of 24 exogenous variables, 13 had their largest indirect effect through knowledge about de-worming (education of the respondent, family educational status, innovation proneness, attitude towards dairy farming, risk orientation, knowledge about AI, green fodder feeding and concentrate feeding, personal cosmopolitan source, personal local sources, communication source and urban contact). Economic status of the respondent influenced six variables (occupation, family size, land, house type, farm power and material possessions). On the other hand, knowledge about de-worming and mass media communication exert their largest indirect effect through innovation proneness. Similarly, communication source, family size and occupation exert their largest direct effect on adoption of selected animal husbandry practices by the dairy farmers outside the milk co-operative, but also it influences indirectly in association with a large number of variables which perform their role through this factor. So, knowledge about de-worming has come out to be a key element which directly and indirectly promotes adoption of improved animal husbandry practices in case of dairy farmer of Non-member Co-operative Societies.

Conclusions

• From the above study it can be concluded that Communication source is the key variable that directly and indirectly influences the adoption of improved animal husbandry practices in Member Co-operative Societies, whereas knowledge about de-worming is the main factor that influence the adoption of improved animal husbandry practices both directly and indirectly in Non-member Co-operative Societies.

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Received 26 June 2004; Accepted 18 July 2004

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