Tribal dairy farming status in the Northern Hills Zone of Chhattisgarh state, India-An survey research

This survey research was carried out to explore the existing dairy farming status in the tribal populated districts of northern hills zone of Chhattisgarh state. Dairy sector has huge potential to generate rural employment and assures the nutritional security to rural folk who belongs to weaker section of the society. Chhattisgarh state is still in primordial stage in dairy farming though the state has good number of cattle population compared to other leading milk producing states. To augment the dairy production in the rural areas, surveying and analysis of existing dairying status is essential and this result helps the planners, administrators, development workers, scientists and others to frame policies to implement developmental schemes. The results indicated that, more than half (56.33%) of the tribal dairy farmers falling under the category of subsistence level of dairy production system, about half (44.67%) of the respondents possessing medium herd size, non-descript dairy cattle ranks first in the livestock category numbers (865), followed by draught animal (539), cross breeds (126), non-descript upgraded (93), Buffalo upgraded + ND (79), Scrub bulls (27) and Calves (ND + CB + BC were (146). Non-descript lactating cows had 1.24 litres/animal as an average milk production with the maximum of 2 litres and minimum of 250 ml. Crossbred, Upgraded buffaloes and Upgraded non-descript dairy animals had shown the superior milk production performance in F2 generation. Less than half (45.33%) of the tribal farmers producing less than 1.2 litres of milk per day and majority (64.67%) of the respondents selling surplus milk through middle man.