Identification of Indicators of Sustainble Dairy Farming

Dairy farming plays a significant role in building nation's economy and augmenting socio-economic role by supplementing family income and generating employment in the rural sector. It is largely the vocation of the poor in India. Tin fact, dairy farming would provide sustained income for the farm families through improving the livelihood of farming community. This study was carried out to identify the indicators for sustainable dairy farming among members of women dairy co-operative societies in Puducherry region. Data were collected from continuous pourers and discontinuous pourers. A two way comparison was done to identify the indicators, a) comparison between the same continuous pourers with a gap of four years and b) the comparison between the continuous pourers and discontinued pourers. The identified indicators of sustainable dairy farming from the above two comparisons were found to be annual income from dairy farming, quantity of milk sold in a year, duration of milk supplied in a year, number of cows in milk, herd size, contribution of dairy farming to the total family income, total family income and number of local cows owned.