Socio-Economic Characteristics, Adoption, and Knowledge Level of Goat Farmers: A Study in Aspirational Districts of West Bengal, India

Abstract

The study was conducted on socio-economic status and constraints faced by the farmers in purposively selected districts of West Bengal. Respondents were randomly selected from each district with a total sample size of 5000 for the present study. The data was collected with the help of a pre-tested structured interview schedule. The study of various socio-economic indicators suggests that the majority of goat farmers in these districts were illiterate and belong to the lower economic status. It had been observed that women were mostly engaged in goat farming and their financial condition was poor. The education status of these farmers mostly was below 10th standard, and they were mainly engaged in household work. Majority of these farmers had not received any training related to animal husbandry practices and thus provision of suitable training in this area could be helpful for their livelihood security. As the land holding capacity of these farmer were low, goat farming can be an alternative tool to enrich their economic status. As a whole promotion of goat husbandry could be an ideal intervention to improve the socio-economic condition of these farmers whose livelihood was in stake. Finally, it also depicted various constraints like lack of training facilities, education etc. were the major drawbacks for the upliftment of the socio-economic status of the farmers in the selected districts of West Bengal which might be very much informative in the formulation of specific animal husbandry development plan in the study area.