Division of Dairy Extension, NDRI, Karnal-132 001(Haryana)

ABSTRACT:
India, the current leader in the dairy world, ranks first in milk production with a production level of 100 million
tones of milk per annum. This sector contributes more than 25 per cent of the total value of agriculture GDP.
The Dairy Development Programmes launched by various departments in the country play an important role
in socio-economic and employment generation for rural poor. The dairy farming not only provides
employment opportunity but also nutritive support to the people for a healthy society. In our country, dairying
as an enterprise has been taken up by mostly marginal and landless farmers, and most of the activities have
been performed by housewives. In recent years, the Dairy Development through Self Help Group (SHG) is
gaining importance. The major problem with most programmes for Dairy development and channelising
credit to the rural areas seems to be that they are not based on realistic assumptions and analysis of the
rural markets. Keeping this in view, a study has been conducted in the purposively selected state of
Haryana. As Haryana state has been divided into four divisions namely, Ambala, Rohtak, Hisar and
Gurgaon. Therefore, Kaithal, Karnal, Hisar and Gurgaon districts have been selected from the four divisions
respectively, on the basis of district having maximum number of women SHG. Two blocks from each of
selected district and two villages from each of the selected block have been picked up randomly. Thus, there
were 16 villages in total. From each village 10 respondents have been included for data collection. Only
those farm women were considered who were the members of SHG for the last four years. Random
Sampling technique was adopted for selecting the respondents from Self Help Group. A total sample size of
240 (160 members and 80 non-members) were taken for this research.
The study revealed that members of Self help Groups could get the loan easily and at lower interest rate
than those of non members. Most of the loans were contracted for a period of less than 12 months in turn
respondents did not remain under stress of loan for longer period. There was a wide gap between the
average net income in non-members and members situations. The incremental net income was also higher
which accounted for 47.14 per cent increase over the non-members. The age of SHGs also had a positive
impact on the incremental net income. The feeling of members in terms of their self worth such as
confidence building, meeting financial crisis of the family, treatment towards neighbours, etc. were found
higher in the members’ category. There was considerable improvement in the quality of treatment meted out
to the SHG members by their family members in comparison to non members’ situation. Various SHG
activities resulted in improving the decision making capacity of SHG members on day today social matters.
Communication skill was also found better due their exposure to external world. A lot of behavioural change
was also observed in the members’ family. The profitability of dairy farming depends upon the average
lactation milk yield of the animals. Hence, an understanding of the variables which influences the average
lactation milk yield in field condition help in manipulating them to improve the productivity of animals. The
results of correlation analysis in Table 1 indicates that occupation, land holding size, herd size, milk
production, milk sale, income from dairying, annual gross income, extension contact and mass media
exposure were found to have positive and significant relationship with lactation milk yields of animals at 1%
level. However, time spent on dairying was found significant at 5 % level with lactation milk yield of animals.
It indicate that the respondents having higher land holding size, herd size, milk production, milk sale income
from dairying, annual gross income, extension contact and mass media exposure had animals of higher
lactation milk yield.