Farmers’ knowledge and adoption of scientific feeding practices of dairy animals in Jhansi district

The study was conducted in Jhansi district of Bundelkhand region to know the adoption of scientific feeding practices of dairy animals. The district has been divided in 8 strata based on the animal production, milk production and forest cover. From each stratum, one village was selected randomly to represent the strata. 30 respondents from different land holding categories were selected in each village by applying proportionate random sampling technique. The respondents were those who had at least one milch animal at the time of investigation. The information was collected through well structured and pre-tested interview schedule by interviewing 240 farmers from 8 villages. The study was conducted in Jhansi district of Bundelkhand region to know the level of knowledge and extent of adoption regarding scientific feeding practices. The knowledge level was highest (69.60%) and the extent of adoption was found to be highest (49.76%) in dry animal feeding practices followed by feeding of heifers i.e. 65.82 percent & 48.22 percent, and lowest was observed in the feeding of calves (43.08% & 32.63%). Further it was found that large farmers possess maximum knowledge up to the level of 60.57 percent and lowest knowledge was possessed by medium farmers (57.17%), where as remaining three categories of farmers were having about 58 percent extent of knowledge in relation to scientific feeding practices of dairy animals. The extent of adoption was highest among small farmers category (45.85%), followed by large (44.60%), marginal (43.55%), medium (42.55%) and landless (40.78%). On the whole the respondents of the study area were having 58.66 per cent level of knowledge and 43.47% extent of adoption on scientific feeding practices of dairy animals. The use of localite and cosmopolite sources of information accelerated the adoption of scientific feeding practices of dairy animals).