SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROFILE OF THE BUFFALO FARMERS IN MADARGONJ UPAZILLA OF JAMALPUR DISTRICT

Abstract

The study was conducted to investigate the socio-economic profile of the buffalo farmers and management practices at four unions namely Balijuri, Char Pakerdha, Jorekhali, Karaichura of Madargonj upazilla of Jamalpur district. The experiment was undertaken in five villages from four unions of Madarganj Upazilla in Jamalpur district of Bangladesh. A total of 60 respondents were randomly selected from the four unions; each union consists of different numbers of respondents. The period of data collection was from October to December, 2018. The data was collected through personal interviewing with pre-tested questioner. The investigation revealed that buffalo rearing was practiced by the middle (30-40 years) and old (>40 years) aged farmers than the young (<30 years). Majority (75%) of the buffalo farmers are illiterate to primary education level. Maximum families (40%) were medium type family due to well decision of family planning. The major occupation of the selected farmers are mixed agriculture (dairy, poultry) (50%) followed by only buffalo rearing (36.7%). The buffalo farmers basically have no training skills (86.7%) but practiced buffalo rearing as their family profession and maximum farmers (45%) use bank loan where 41.7% farmers use own capital for buffalo’s production. 56.7% farmers rear crossbred buffalo and rest 10% were mixed indigenous and crossbred type. The buffalo farmers purchased usually one pair of buffalo and reared at least for 2 years. The buffalo houses were made of varieties of local materials such as straw, tin, mud, chatai etc. About 63.4% houses were made of straw, 28.3% made of tin. The farmers fed their buffalos with locally available river side grasses but they (75%) did not practice concentrate feeding. Semi-intensive feeding system was practiced for rearing buffaloes followed by extensive feeding system. Majority of the buffalo farmers allowed wallowing buffaloes for once or twice in a day and 58.3% followed only natural breeding method for breeding. The major diseases of buffaloes found in the studied areas were Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) followed by Black Quarter (BQ) and Anthrax. Most of the buffalo farmers practiced vaccination and de-worming regularly. The highest portion of the farmers used average cost of one pair of buffalo at 90000-100000 BDT. The annual total cost of production was Tk 9570, while a gross return was Tk 26400 per buffalo. The annual food and cloth purchasing capacity of the buffalo farmers were found to be increased to 65.60 and 57.24%, respectively. Similarly, the ability to maintain health care, social status, education and housing of the buffalo farmers were also increased through buffalo rearing. Considering all this parameters related to livelihood, it was clearly found that the socio-economic status of the buffalo farmers was improved through buffalo rearing although the management practices need to be improved with scientific approaches.