KNOWLEDGE & ATTITUDE OF FARMERS OF SMALL SCALE DAIRY FARMING IN DHAKA DISTRICT

Abstract

The major purpose of this research study was to determine dairy farmer’s knowledge and attitude towards dairy farms and also to explore the relationships between each of 12 selected characteristics of the dairy farmers and their knowledge and attitude towards dairy farming. The study was conducted in 5 Thana’s under Dhaka district. The populations of dairy farmers in five Thana’s were 182 and sample size was 58 (random sampling method used). An interview schedule was used for data collection. The data were collected during 5 May to 5 August 2018. Scales were developed in order to measure the variables. Majority of the farmers (36.2%) had medium knowledge and 34.5% farmers had low and 29.3% had high knowledge on dairy farming. Regarding attitude, the study showed that about 50% of the respondents had high favorable attitude, 43.1% of the respondents had unfavorable attitude and 6.9% of the respondents had Neutral attitude towards dairy farming. Age, level of education, annual income, Organizational participation, training received, extension media contact, Cosmopoliteness, herd size and Annual recurring expenditure of the dairy farmers had significant positive relationship and problem faced by dairy farmer had negative significant relationship with their knowledge on dairy farming, while land holding and milk production had no significant relationship with their knowledge on dairy farming. In case of attitude age, level of education, land holding, annual income, organization participation, training received, extension media contact, cosmopoliteness, herd size and annual recurring expenditure of the farmers had significant positive relationship with their attitude towards dairy farming and problem faced by dairy farmer and milk production of the farmers had no significant relationship with their attitude towards dairy farming. The findings of the study revealed that vast majority of the farmers (70.7%) had low to medium knowledge on dairy farming. Attitude of the farmers is not up to mark. A proportion of 50 percent of the farmers had high favorable attitude towards various aspects of dairy farming.