Impact of Extension Activities on Farmers'Awareness, Knowledge, Skills and Attitude with Reference to Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes Women towards Livestock Farming

摘要

The investigation was carried out in randomly selected three villages of Nadia district of West Bengal by randomly selecting 103 respondents belonging to tribal (62.14%) and scheduled caste (37.86%) category. Among the total respondents, majority were women (75.73%) followed by men (24.27%). It was found that traditional livestock production system was mainly controlled by women who were chiefly responsible for production of livestock and marketing activities. So, any improvement of this traditional livestock production system will directly benefit the whole of the family. Training was imparted to the respondents about scientific animal husbandry practices utilizing indigenous breeds of cattle, goat and pig and on integrated livestock with fish and horticulture farming. The training programs were found to create awareness among the respondents about scientific application of livestock production system. Regular vaccination was carried out against black quarter (BQ) and hemorrhagic septicemia (HS) in cattle and pests des petits ruminants (PPR) in goat along with deworming, health coverage for sick animals, distribution of leaflets and mineral mixtures to the respondents for their livestock in the villages. The prevalence of major killer diseases likes BQ, HS and PPR, morbidly and mortality of livestock was reduced remarkably due to regular vaccination, health coverage, deworming programs. The negative attitude of the respondents towards vaccination and deworming before the onset of the investigation was also removed due to creation of awareness through training, integrated animal health camps and distribution of leaflets.Thus, there was an overall improvement in awareness, knowledge, skills and attitude of the respondents towards livestock farming due to various extension activities.