Division of Dairy Economics, Statistics and Management, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, 132001, Haryana, India
Online published on 13 December, 2019.
The present study was undertaken in the Begusarai district of Bihar on a sample of Women Dairy Cooperative Society (WDCS) member and non-member dairy farming households using a translog stochastic profit frontier and inefficiency model. The primary data was collected in 2015 from 80 member and 80 non-member women dairy farmers using a semi-structured interview schedule. The results showed that the profit efficiency in the case of members ranged between 15.34% and 89.99% for the worst and best farmer, respectively, and between 16.18% and 87.97% in the case of non-members. The major determinants of profit inefficiency were found to be age of the women dairy farmer, training received by them, farming experience, herd size and herd composition. The study concludes that WDCS have been instrumental in changing the overall dairy paradigm in rural India and brought about the feminization of the sector, and to improve profit efficiency, training should be provided on dairy farming practices and more cross-breds should be adopted in the herd.
