Effect of age and educational level of dairy farmers on knowledge and adoption of dairy farming practices in Kapurthala district of Punjab

The study was conducted on eighty farmers belonging to 5 blocks of Kapurthala district during January to March 2016 in order to assess the effect of age and education level on the knowledge level about dairy farming, source of information acquired and adoption of recommended practices for carrying out different activities of dairy enterprise. The farmers in the age group of 20–30 years were found to be more interested in acquiring trainings, demonstrations and exposure visits and acquired high level of knowledge as compared to the elder group of more than 40 years of age. On the other hand the adoption of various management practices was found to be higher in elder than the young group. The practices found to be negatively correlated with knowledge were animal in heat, feeding of colostrums to newly born calf, record maintaining and dehorning of calf whereas period of insemination, dairy management practices, foot and mouth disease and symptoms of haemorrhagic septicaemia showed a significant positive correlation with the age of the farmers. Practices like animal in heat, feeding newly born calf, colostrums feeding, fodder and concentrate, record maintaining, clean milk production and dehorning of calf were positively correlated with the education level whereas all other practices were found to be negatively correlated. This shows that as the education level went on increasing farmers became reluctant to do field operations. Education level helped in acquiring the knowledge but adoption was found to be less in highly educated persons. The study revealed that in order to make overall development of the dairy farming community it is essential to select the actual beneficiaries.