Year: 2020 | Month: June | Volume 65 | Issue 2
Impact of Cooperative Milk Collection Camp on Socio-economic Conditions of Dairy Farmers in Hooghly District of West Bengal
Santanu Sana
Deep Narayan Mukherjee
DOI:10.46852/0424-2513.2.2020.23
Abstract:
The study examined the impact of cooperative milk collection camp on socio-economic conditions of farmers in Hooghly district of West Bengal. The farmers cooperatively collect milk in the collection camp namely Bholanath Dairy and milk was sent to Arambagh chilling plant. The primary data were collected from 60 cooperative farmers and 10 agricultural farmers through purposive random sampling method. The present collection camp covers 7 villages with 402 milk farmers and total milk collected in last 6 months was 216000 litres. The average herd size per family was 1.28 for local cow and 0.92 for crossbreed cow. The major component of variable costs incurred were feed which includes green fodder, dry fodder concentrates and grains. The total variable cost incurred by dairy farmer per animal per year was ` 26552.44. The total cost of producing milk per animal per year was ` 30149.99. The gross return obtained per animal per year was ` 51450.00. Lack of technical facility, high cost of cattle feed, improper grading; measurement & timings of milk collection in the camp were the major problems of the dairy farmers. The study farther showed that the families which were attached with dairy activities side by side of agriculture generated more income than solo agricultural families. It also found that the number of dairy farmers decreased in the cooperative milk collection camp with the increase of distance. So, this model might be replicated in every villages. There was also a scope for reduction in cost of milk production by using modern methods and technologies of dairy farming that was completely absent in the study area.
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