Can forage technologies transform Indian livestock sector?: Evidences from smallholder dairy farmers in Bundelkhand region of central India

Abstract

The study has analysed the factors affecting adoption of improved forage technologies and its impact on milk yield and feed sufficiency in Bundelkhand region. We used propensity score matching (PSM) technique on cross-sectional data collected from 400 dairy farmers for impact evaluation and also conducted sensitivity analysis to examine the effect of uncontrolled confounders on the estimands. Our findings suggest that, education status, standard livestock unit, animal breed type, off-farm income activities, farm size and access to training, credit and market significantly influence adoption of improved forage technologies and practices. Further the adoption led to a significant increase in annual milk production (over 950 litres) and daily milk yield (1.15 to 2.04 litres) and also reduced time spent in feeding by around 2 hours during zaid season and around an hour during kharif season.