Profit efficiency of women dairy farmers in Begusarai District of Bihar

The present study was undertaken to find out the profit efficiency of Women Dairy Co-operative Society (WDCS) member and nonmember dairy farming households of Begusarai district of Biharusing a translog stochastic profit frontier and inefficiency model. The primary data was collected from 80 each members and non-member women dairy farmers using a semi-structured interview schedule. The results showed that the profit efficiency in the case of members (89.99 percent) was higher than non-members (87.97 percent). The mean efficiency in the case of member and non-member farmers was 71.76 and 60.77 percent, respectively which means that 28.24 and 39.23 percent of profit can be increased by improving technical and allocative efficiencies. The major determinants of profit inefficiency were found to be the age of the women dairy farmer, training received by them, farming experience, herd size, herds composition etc. Thus, training should be provided on dairy farming practices and the adoption of more crossbred in the herd should be increased in order to improve profit efficiency. It was concluded that WDCS played a very important role is changing the overall dairy sector in rural India.