Factors associated and their relative contribution to milk yield in eastern India

Dairy plays a substantial role in augmenting agricultural income in the country as well as in the Eastern India. It helps in stabilizing agriculture as it provides daily net income. Those farmers who include dairy as an enterprise in their farming system receives more income as compared to the farmers growing crops alone. Higher milk yield should be associated with a dependable market support, which provides a remunerative price to the cow owners. Yield raising technology including feeds to dairy animals is directly linked to milk yield. In this paper an attempt has been made with an objective to study the factors associated and their relative contribution on milk yield among different categories of dairy farmers. In the process of analysis it is found that the dairy farmers used dry feed, green feed, concentrates, and medicine and also engaged some owned as well as hired labour in the production process of milk. The regression coefficients associated with dry feed and labour are highly significant indicating their significant role in the production of milk. The regression coefficients associated with green feed and medicine are found to be negative indicating their uneconomic use in the production process among the size class-II group of dairy farmers (who have 4 to 8 cows). The return to scale in farming is 1.2 indicating increasing return to scale. In this context the study clearly indicates that these farmers need more resources for getting high yield. Among the three categories, the dairy farmers belong to size class-II are found to be operative at an increasing return to scale. The status of this dairy farms can be increased by an increasing level of resources. But the dairy farm grouped under size class-I and III are found to be uneconomic indicating their operational level at decreasing return to scale. The study clearly suggest to improve the quality of animals which will make the dairy farm more cost effective as well as resource responsive compared to the existing farms. Both concentrates and dry feed are crucial in shifting the level of milk yield. Concentrates are expensive. Hence green feeds need encouragement by popularizing appropriate forage species and biomass producers. Their production is constrained by low extent of agricultural lands under irrigation. Alternative dry feeds become important for the period October to June. Silo-pit technology needs encouragement. Simultaneously Research and Development (R & D) efforts to develop low cost concentrates cannot be neglected. The study brings out the importance of medicine as an important management input. A network of veterinary health services would be of great help. As a preventive measure extension education regarding clear environment is crucial, in the given the situation of land crunch both in rural and urban habitats. Well designed community cow sheds should be tried out. The major factors like dry feed and concentrate including labour used for taking care of the animal, discriminate the yield of milk to a significant extent among the dairy farm owners. An attempt is to be made to make available such feeds among poor resource base dairy farmers. The milk marketing system is toe be integrated with input supply system for increasing productivity of milk. An important related issue is reducing the proportion of non descriptmilch animals which are a drain on the resources without contributing to production satisfactorily.