Social and Economical Parameters Influencing Awareness of Animal Welfare among Dairy Farmers of Kathua District of J &K State

Agriculture sector is the backbone of rural socio-economic status in India and livestock sector alone contributes nearly 25.6% to the total value of output in Agriculture. Farmers doing both agriculture and livestock farming can easily sustain their earnings as livestock farming never fails if it is done with good managemental skills. Management in dairy farm is linked health and welfare of animals. Animal welfare expectations vary enormously and are strongly influenced by the socio-economic conditions of the livestock owners in the country. As we all are aware that safe and quality milk is being produced from healthy animals using management practices that are sustainable from an animal welfare, social, economic and environmental perspective. The study was conducted on 120 dairy farmers in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir. The study revealed that majority of the respondents were from middle age group (51%) and having education only up to high school. No respondent was found having education beyond the level of high school. Majority of the farmers (53.3%) were having land holding of less than one acre and no respondent was having land holding more than ten acres. Majority of the farmers were having low herd size of 2-5 animals and agriculture was their main occupation (50%) followed by animal husbandry (29%) as subsidiary occupation. The annual income of the dairy farmers from the animal husbandry was low (73%) but their gross family income was medium (63%). The awareness of dairy farmers about animal welfare measures was good and they (69%) believed that they themselves were responsible for the animal welfare.