Adoption Level of Animal Welfare Practices among Dairy Farmers in Central Plain Zone of Uttar Pradesh

Animal welfare assumes much significance in the era of dairy commercialization, both for health of the animals as well as to improve the farm productivity. Although animal welfare scores, scales and modules have been developed and implemented at developed countries, the outreach of animal welfare and awareness about the same has not been given due importance in developing countries including India. In this context, the present research study was designed to make an attempt to find out the extent of adoption of animal welfare practices by the dairy farmers at field level. The study was conducted in the Central plain zone of Uttar Pradesh State. Four districts (Hardoi, Auraiya, Allahabad and Kaushambi) were selected purposively. One block from each district and from each block two villages and from each village 15 farmer-respondents were selected randomly. A total of 120 respondents were finally approached for the primary data collection. The salient findings revealed that, in case of overall adoption of animal welfare practices, more than half of the dairy farmers (55.83%) had medium level of adoption, whereas remaining 23.34 and 20.83% respondents had high and low levels of adoption, respectively. Hence, majority of the farmers were adopting the dairy management practices which met the welfare protocols of the dairy animals.