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The paper assesses the impact of membership of dairy cooperative i.e. Jharkhand State Cooperative Milk Producers’ Federation (JMF) on the performance of dairy production systems using propensity score matching techniques. Dairy cooperative members differed significantly from non-members in terms of outcome variables. The mean difference value explained that the socio-economic condition of members was better than non-members. The findings revealed that membership of JMF contributes towards improving yields of dairy animals, net dairy income, and also, to household milk consumption. The non-members reaped better price for the milk in the wet market as compared to the members. Nonetheless,the member-producers recorded higher proportion of milk sale as compared to the non-members which also indicated their intensity of market participation. These results indicatetowards the need to improve dairy farmers’ linkages through cooperatives or other such institutions for their socio-economic development.

Good dairy management practices are a widely important tool for facilitating and promoting farmers' production and marketing of healthy, high quality milk and milk products to meet food and consumer expectations. In this context, the present research study was designed to make an attempt to find out the extent of adoption of animal welfare practices by the dairy farmers at field level. The study was conducted in the Central plain zone of Uttar Pradesh State. Four districts (Hardoi, Auraiya, Allahabad and Kaushambi) were selected purposively. One block from each district and from each block two villages and from each village 15 farmer-respondents were selected randomly. A total of 120 respondents were finally approached for the primary data collection. The salient findings with regard to adoption of good dairy management practices revealed that, more than half of the respondents (55.83%) belonged to medium level of adoption category, followed by 27.56 and 16.67% in low and high level of adoption category, respectively. The study further suggests sensitizing and training the extension personnel’s /veterinarians about the good dairy management practices and strengthening the dairy extension services among dairy farmers in the study area.

Animal welfare assumes much significance in the era of dairy commercialization both for health of the animals as well as to improve the farm productivity. Although animal welfare scores, scales and modules have been developed and implemented at developed countries, the outreach of animal welfare and awareness about the same has not been given due importance in developing countries including India. In this context, the present research study was designed to make an attempt to find out the extent of adoption of animal welfare practices by the dairy farmers at field level. The study was undertaken in the Central plain zone of Uttar Pradesh State. Four districts (Hardoi, Auraiya, Allahabad and Kaushambi) were selected purposively based on highest and lowest bovine population and milk production. One block from each district and from each block two villages and from each village 15 farmer-respondents were selected randomly. A total of 120 respondents were finally approached for the primary data collection. The salient findings revealed that, lack of complete know-how about GDMPs/AWPs, lack of incentives, policy and programme support besides non-availability of timely veterinary services were the major constraints expressed by respondents. The present study concludes that, there is strong need to sensitize and train the extension personnel’s/veterinarians about the animal welfare practices and strengthen the dairy extension services among various stakeholders involved in dairying.

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