Study of socio-economic profile of dairy farmers in Madhya Pradesh

The current study is based on the primary data collected from 80 dairy farmers, selected using multi-stage random sampling from two zones of Madhya Pradesh in the year 2019–2020. The data were analyzed using basic statistical tools such as mean, percentage and ratio. Average family size was 6.62 and about 75 per cent of the head of households were found literate. Majority of the farmers in the study area were middle aged, having agriculture as main occupation and are middle income earners. Average size of operational land holding was 1.57 ha while the area under fodder crop was 0.14 ha. All these variables were showing positive correlation with the herd size category i.e., increasing with the increase in herd size. Average size of milch animals per household was found to be 2.66 milch animals, which comprise of 1.26 indigenous cattle, 0.88 buffaloes, and 0.52 crossbreds. Average milk yield per day of crossbreds was higher among all the three species across all the categories of households while per litre cost and returns from milk production was higher in case of buffalo followed by crossbreds due to higher price of buffalo milk. Feed cost accounted the major share in total cost and was the highest in case of crossbreds. Buffaloes were contributing the highest milk in the total milk production i.e., 35.79 per cent followed by indigenous cattle and crossbreds. Across the various herd size categories, medium category household contributes the highest milk (38.93%) followed by small and large category. Overall per capita per day milk availability and milk consumption were 1.49 and 0.37 litres, respectively, and both were found to be increasing with the increase in herd size.