COMPARATIVE ECONOMIC STUDY ON DAIRY FARMING IN SOME SELECTED AREAS OF BANGLADESH

Abstract

Dairy development through Field Fertility Clinic (FFC) is relatively a recent effort in Bangladesh. Farmers in the FFC areas are increasingly becoming interested in raising dairy cows. This paper is an attempt to examine the relative profitability of raising dairy cows by FFC members and non-members control farmers. The study revealed that annual average milk production per farm was 10075.32 litres and 8662.56 litres for FFC member and non-member control fanner respectively. In the case of FFC member farmer net return per farm was US S 852.44 while in the case of non-member control farmer. The member was US S 747.13. Return from per FFC member farm was higher by US $ 105.31 than the non-member control farm. The net change of dairy income from a farm was observed to be US S 407.22 and US $ 205.90 due to introduction of FFC veterinary services and recommended feeding practice respectively. It has been found that using the FFC veterinary services the net change of farm income was higher (US $ 407.22) than the FFC recommended feeding practice. CobbDouglas production function analysis was done to determine the effects of variables mainly for concentrate cost (X ,), rice straw cost (X,), green grass cost (X,), labour cost (X.), veterinary services cost (X,) and FFC intervention (D) on milk return. The finding suggested all of the selected variables had significant impact on milk return. It was further observed that all the resources except rice straw were used efficiently.