The Need for Extension Services for Good Dairy Farming Practices of Dairy Farmers in On Tai Sub-district, San Kamphaeng District, Chiang Mai

Abstract

This research aimed to: 1) assess the need of dairy farmers for extension advice and services to ensure good dairy farming practices; 2) identify the factors that have implication on the need for extension services and 3) explore the problems and limitations hindering the good dairy farming practices and what the dairy farmers suggest to be done to ease their difficulties. It was conducted in 129 samples of dairy farmers in On Tai Sub-district, San Kamphaeng District, Chiang Mai. The needed information was compiled by means of questionnaire. The analysis was performed upon the descriptive statistics including frequency, arithmetic mean, percentage, and standard deviation, and the results from running the multiple regression. The findings revealed the dairy farmers under study had a high overall need to get the extension advice and services to ensure good dairy farming practices. Five factors were found to statistically significantly relate to the need for the extension advice and services. Two factors, the dairy farm size and the income from dairy farming, were positively related to the need; while three factors-the number of dairy cattle, the accessibility to information about good dairy farming practices, and training in good dairy farming practice–were negatively related to the need. The main problems and limitations in the pursuance of good dairy farming practices were reported to include: 1) the low quality raw milk because the use of antibiotics was still necessary for the treatment of mastitis, and the foot-and-mouth disease in the rainy season; 2) the rising labor cost and the shortage of skilled and experience labor who can handle such requirements as milking hygiene, animal health maintenance, etc. in the good dairy farming practices, and 3) the limited availability of animal feeds in terms of quantity and quality to prepare a good ration. The dairy farmers under study thus proposed to both the public and private sectors to provide them assistance in the following areas: 1) guidelines for raw milk quality tests and keeping dairy cattle in good health to produce more and better quality milk; 2) knowledge on cow milking tools and equipment and the establishment of the fund for the purchase of modern milking tools and machines and 3) support for animal feed cost reduction by using local raw materials.