Perceived training needs of livestock farmers in Karnataka

2^nd International Conference on Animal & Dairy Sciences

September 15-17, 2014 Hyderabad International Convention Centre, India

B L Balaraju, Prakash Khandekar, Mahesh Chander and Letha Devi

Accepted Abstracts: J Veterinar Sci Technolo

Abstract :

Looking at the size, the scenario of livestock sector in India looks very appealing, but the livestock productivity per se is very poor in terms of production, productivity and per capita availability of livestock products. This could be due to various reasons like lack of skilled human resources, poor genetic potential of livestock, scarcity of feed and fodder, low knowledge level of farmers, etc. Realizing the prime importance of need for skill and knowledge enrichment of livestock owners, an ex- post-facto study was conducted in Davangere district of Karnataka to know the perceived training needs of livestock owners in improved dairy farming practices. A sample of 120 livestock owners with at least 1-2 milch animals and 2 small ruminants from 8 Gram panchayat (15 livestock owners from each Gram panchayat) of the 4 blocks of Davangere district was selected randomly. The data was collected using pre-tested structured interview schedule by personal interview method. The training needs of livestock owners was assessed for six major areas of dairy farming at five point continuum like most important, important, somewhat important, less important and least important with scores 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1, respectively. The ranking of each major area was done based on the obtained total weighted mean score. According to livestock owners? perceived training needs, health care ranked first followed by feeding (II), breeding (III), housing & management (IV), marketing & finance (V) and products preparation (VI). Therefore, the Extension agencies and training imparting agencies in Davangere district has to give special emphasis on health care, feeding and breeding during dairy farmers training for increasing the livestock productivity and improving the living standards of the farmers.