Constraint analysis in adopting mastitis prevention and management technologies in Kanpur district of Uttar Pradesh

Introduction

Dairy farming plays a significant role in livelihood security and supplements the income of millions of rural households in India (Verma et al. 2020 and Verma et al. 2021) [10,9] . Mastitis, one of the most expensive diseases, reduces the profitability of dairy animals through production losses and economic returns (Bardhan, 2013) [1] to dairy farmers in India. In dairy animals, there are three types of contagious mastitis, viz. Clinical mastitis, subclinical mastitis and chronic mastitis and among these three, sub-clinical mastitis is the major and silent problem causing the highest losses in the form of income to dairy farmers (Tripti et al., 2018). Early diagnosis, management or cure of mastitis at the subclinical stage saves a substantial amount of dairy farmers' income and leads to an increase in production, improvement in milk quality, milk quantity and consumer health safety (Wattiaux, 2011) [11] . The losses due to mastitis are recognised across the world as a major problem in dairy animals and limit milk production efficiency in many dairy herds despite the amount of knowledge available on the subject (Hogeveen, 2005) [6] . The occurrence of mastitis is a complicated problem associated with almost every conceivable factor of management and the environment (Blood and Radostitis, 1989) [2] . A farmer who knows that mastitis causes production inefficiencies and additional costs can be motivated to act on mastitis prevention (Valeeva et al., 2007) [3] . Disease control and prevention decisions are often based on the farmer's perception and knowledge level of mastitis control measures. Perception refers to what a farmer thinks is correct. For effective mastitis control, farmers' perceptions of disease risk, different control measures to practice, constraints and the inherent benefits associated with available disease control options are important criteria in adoption decisions (Gnanasekar and Christy, 2013) [4] . Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the constraints faced by dairy farmers in adopting mastitis prevention and management technologies in Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh.

Materials and Methods

The study was conducted in Kanpur Dehat district of Uttar Pradesh in 2024-25. A total of four blocks, and from each block, five villages (20 villages) were selected. From each village, 10 respondents who were engaged in dairy farming were selected as respondents. A total of 200 dairy farmers were randomly selected for the present study. A wellwww.extensionjournal.com structured and pre-tested interview schedule was used to collect the data from the respondents. The dairy farmers were asked to rank the various constraints which restrict the adoption of mastitis prevention and management technologies on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the most important and 5 is the least important, which were used for prioritisation of constraints. The responses were recorded for four types of constraints, viz. general, technical, sociopsychological and economic constraints. The data were compiled and analysed with Microsoft Excel. The analysis of constraints was done by using Garrett's ranking techniques. In Garrett's ranking techniques, the orders of merit as given by the respondents were converted into ranks by using the following formula Where, R ij = Rank given for i th problem by j th individual. Nj = Number of problems ranked by the j th individual

The percentage position of each rank was then converted into scores by referring to the table (Garrett and Woodworth, 1969) [5] . The scores of individual dairy farmers for a particular problem were added and divided by the total number of respondents. The mean scores for all the constraints were arranged in descending order, and thus, ranks were assigned to prioritise the constraints.

Results and Discussion

Constraints faced by farmers in the adoption of mastitis prevention and management technologies

The various factors restricting the adoption of two mastitispreventing technologies, viz., teat dip and mastitis diagnosis kit, were studied as four types of constraints, viz., general, technical, socio-psychological and economic. The results are discussed below;

General constraints

The findings related to general constraint analysis by Garret's Ranking Technique for the adoption of mastitis prevention and management technologies are presented in Table 1 (2022) [7] . [8] .

Conclusion

The constraint analysis by Garret Ranking Techniques revealed that lack of awareness about the technology, Inadequate knowledge of diseases and their control measures, lack of technical knowledge on mastitis, inability to make decisions and high cost of private veterinary www.extensionjournal.com services are the major constraints hindering adoption of mastitis management technologies in the study area. Based on the findings, the study stressed the need for extensive extension efforts to make aware the dairy farmers aware of their major problems with dairy animals, which can be minimised with the adoption of simple technologies.

Educating the farming community through different means can play a significant role in reducing the incidence of mastitis and ultimately increasing the farm income.

Acknowledgement

AcknowledgementThe authors are thankful to respondents who voluntarily participated in the survey and helped in the completion of this study. Authors also acknowledge the Vice-Chancellor, CSAUAT, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, for providing necessary facilities.

References

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