Constraints Faced by the Members of Women Milk Producers' Cooperative Societies in Shivamogga District of Karnataka, India

Women Milk Producers' Co-operative Societies (WMPCS) have emerged as an important source of rural employment and income in the country. The development of the WMPCS is very impressive in recent past. Shivamogga district is a good contributor to milk in Karnataka state. Keeping this in view, an ex-post facto research design was adopted to assess the constraints faced by the WMPCS members in dairy farming in the Shivamogga district of Karnataka. A total of 120 members were randomly selected from six WMPCS in two taluks of Shivamogga district and the data was collected with a semi-structured interview schedule. The collected data were subjected to suitable statistical tools and inferences were drawn. The study revealed that the majority of the women members had experienced the constraints in dairy farming like high cost of cattle feed and mineral mixture, low price of milk, high cost of crossbred cows, inadequate provision of loans in society or government for purchasing animals, lack of timely technical guidance, poor conception rate in dairy animals through artificial insemination, poor knowledge about feeding and health care, an increasing gap between farmers' prices and consumers' prices/increasing cost of handling charges by the union, Nonexistence of a price-fixing policy based on changing cost of production, decreasing animal sales and availability in the local livestock market, lack of training facilities or capacity-building activities and the non-availability of veterinary staff during needy hours as the constraints. Strategies should be developed for capacity building of women farmers related to scientific dairy managemental practices. Thrust should be given to development of policies and programmes for credit facilities.