A study on dairy farming in coimbatore

Dairy farming occupies a notable place in the agricultural economy of India and milk and milk products are the second largest contributor to Gross National Product (GNP) and income from dairy farming contributes nearly a third of the rural household’s gross income. Tamil Nadu is one of the leading milk producing state in the country, the other states being Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana. Paradoxically, however, the milk production in Tamil Nadu is witnessing a declining trend in recent years due to low productivity of the milch animals, which have been attributed to poor genetic status, non-availability of proper nutrition, poor quality of management and so forth. The rural producers are not only ignorant of the qualitative aspects of the enterprises but even unmindful of the production capabilities of their animals. The knowledge of the economics of milk production in the rural areas would be of immense help for planning for improving of dairy animals and in formulating policies for improving the profitability of the enterprise. The present study is, therefore an attempt to measure the relative importance of socio-economic characteristics in discriminating low profit from high profit dairy units. The study was based on primary data which was compiled by administering a pretested interview schedule to 150 randomly selected dairy owners residing in Mayilampatty village in Coimbatore District. The questionnaire adopted helped the researcher to collect information on social economic and many other related variables of dairy farming. The collected materials and data were organized arranged and tabulated and suitable tools were applied to arrive at results. The data collected relate to the period January to December of 2010. To fulfil the objective of the steady the tool Discriminant Analysis was applied on the collected data.