1Central Agricultural Research Institute, P.B. No. 181, Port Blair—744 101, Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
2National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal—132001, Haryana. E-mail: rajvirsingh5@rediffmail.com
The economics of buffalo farming have been analysed in the Andaman and Nicobar islands by collecting data through three-stage random sampling desing on the average size of buffalo-holding, average age at first calving, order of lactation, lactation period, dry period, inter-calving period, service period, lactation yield and daily milk yield in the study. In the overall activities, the employment of men has been found maximum (89.42%), followed by both men and women (7.06%), women alone (3.23%), and children alone (0.29%). The total fixed investment for all farms has been found as Rs 10600 of which maximum (89.51%) has been on milch animals, followed by diary buildings (8.73%) and dairy equipments (1.76%). The average variable cost in the maintenance of a buffalo in the study area has been found to be Rs 39.65 of which, feed cost accounted for 62.34 per cent. The average milk yield per buffalo has been fond as 4.79 litres per day. Accordingly, the cost of milk production has been worked out to be Rs 11.75 per litre with imputed family labour cost and Rs 8.92 per litre without it. The total returns has been found to be Rs 102.29 per buffalo per day. It has been found that with increase in herd size, the productivity and profitability in general increased, indicating the economies of scale, and the labour cost decreased, indicating optimal utilization of family labour in buffalo farming. Further, the large farmers have been found to realize higher returns than other category of farmers. The major constraints identified include non-availability of fodder and land for the farming practices. It has been concluded that buffalo farming in these Islands is still a highly profitable enterprise under the prevailing conditions.
