Sexed semen technology in Gujarat: Assessing dairy farmers' awareness and adoption readiness

Introduction

The dairy industry in India has long been a cornerstone of the country's agricultural economy, providing livelihoods to millions of farmers and contributing significantly to national milk production. However, despite its impressive growth, the sector faces several challenges, including the overproduction of low-value male calves and calving complications. The advent of sex-sorted semen technology offers a transformative solution, allowing farmers to selectively breed for female offspring, optimizing herd management, and increasing milk production efficiency. Sex-sorted semen technology has emerged as a strategic reproductive intervention in dairy farming due to its potential to improve herd structure, accelerate genetic gain and enhance economic efficiency. To design and implementation of dairying related support programmes framed by the central and state government for promoting dairy farming by adoption of new technologies; sexed semen producing only female calves helps the farmers to save resources that would have been shared with unwanted males. Use of sexed semen in dairy sector not only increase the number of superior heifers but also increase the genetic progress in a herd. It also helps in producing good male germplasm from elite bulls for future breeding. The study is to be conducted to explore the knowledge and adoption of dairy farmers towards sex semen technology and constraints faced by the dairy farmers of Sabarkantha, Mehsana and Amreli districts of Gujarat state. Objective 1. To study the profile of dairy farmers. 2. To study knowledge of dairy farmers towards used of sexed semen technology. 3. To study adoption of dairy farmers towards use of sexed semen technology.

Materials and Methods

The study was conducted in three districts viz., Mahesana, Sabarkantha and Amreli of Gujarat state. From each district two talukas were randomly selected. From each taluka five www.extensionjournal.com villages were selected randomly. From each village ten dairy farmers randomly selected. Thus, a total of 300 respondents' (dairy farmers) were randomly selected for the study.

A suitable interview schedule was developed for dairy farmers. All these selected variables were included in the schedule. The suitable indices were also developed for the measurement of variables. The interview schedules pretested on similar respondents in non-sample area to work out their reliability and validity. The suitable modification was made in the schedules accordingly. With the help of interview schedule, the data was collected from dairy farmers personally by the researcher at the convenient time. Some informal discussion pertaining to the study was carried out. After collection of information, the classification and tabulation of data was done keeping in view the objectives of the study. The suitable statistical analysis of data using SPSS-16.0 software such as mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentages were applied to draw meaningful inferences.

Results and Discussion

The data present in table-1 indicated that majority (54.33 per cent) of dairy farmers belonged to middle age group, followed by old age and young age group. The probable reason might be that this age is considered to be an actively working age. In this group they have responsibilities of earning for their families leading majority farmers in this group. Nearly 45.67 per cent dairy farmers were study up to primary level followed by secondary level, higher secondary level, illiterate and graduate level. This clearly indicated that among the people engaged with dairy farming, majority had primary to higher level of education. Reflecting the fact that dairy farming demands sufficient knowledge for its survival and development. It also shows a good number of the dairy farmers (76.00 per cent) were in long experience group, followed by medium experience (14.67 per cent) and only 9.33 per cent of the respondents had short experience. Table also indicate the 42.00 per cent dairy farmers were small farmers. followed by large farmer category (31.33 per cent), medium farmer category (20.67 per cent) and 5.67 per cent were landless. This is clearly reflected that most of the people engaged with dairy farmer had more than 2.0 hector land. Probable reason may be that dairy farming needs more capital and resources as well as also require risk taking ability which may not be within the capacity of land less laborers, it results in a greater number of farmers in small to big farmer's category. Around 54.00 per cent dairy farmers had medium sized herd, followed by 32.00 per cent dairy farmers had small sized herd and 14.00 per cent dairy farmers had large sized herd. Majority (61.67) per cent dairy farmers had medium annual income, followed by 21.00 per cent dairy farmers had low annual income and only 17.33 per cent dairy farmers had high annual income. The data show that majority (56.00) per cent dairy farmers had low social participation, followed by 32.33 per cent dairy farmers had medium social participation and only 11.67 per cent dairy farmers had high social participation. Nearly (45.00) per cent dairy farmers had low extension participation, followed by 29.67 per cent dairy farmers had medium extension participation and only 25.33 per cent dairy farmers had high extension participation. Nearly (60.00) per cent dairy farmers had low level of mass media exposure, followed by 24.33 per cent dairy farmers had medium mass media exposure and only 15.67 per cent dairy farmers had high level of mass media exposure.

Acknowledgement

AcknowledgementThe authors are thankful to Director Research, Kamdhenu University, Gujarat for providing necessary facilities for conducting the study.

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