Dairy farming innovations’ implementation at every farmer’s farm is the present day need; during the era of scarce natural resources coupled with population explosion, putting obvious pressure for more food production. Milk, produced from every single farm at micro level, is contributing to global economy at macro level. Dairy sector is facing the challenge of low animal productivity due to ineffective and poor farm management. This provides a big window for different innovations application to enhance animal productivity in developing nations where majority dairy farms are small scale and managed on traditional practices. Farm innovations are the novel practices/products/techniques suitable for particular area, physiological stage of animals and economically viable option to enhance the animals’ per diem yield. Despite the prevalence of innovations, the scenario for its applicability is very dismal, majority of them are yet to reach masses at root level. Farmers’ demographic, social and economic characteristics including adoption behavior, act as major impeding factors affecting impact of innovations. In this chapter, information on low cost and user friendly dairy farming innovations suitable for all kinds of farms, maintained under rural conditions existing in different tropical countries have been detailed for enhancing the animal productivity and henceforth farmers’ socio-economic welfare.

No abstract

No abstract

Mastitis is considered to be one of the expensive diseases affecting the profitability of milch animals through production losses. Various mastitis preventive techniques such as teat dip (TD) and mastitis diagnostic kits (MDK) are recommended to prevent intra-mammary infections and diagnosis at sub-clinical stage. Despite these innovations, very low adoption has been observed at field level, leading to higher prevalence of clinical mastitis. To understand the constrains faced by the dairy farmers in adopting mastitis preventing technologies, a cross-sectional study was carried out in six districts of Punjab, India. The responses were collected through personal interview schedule from 600 dairy farmers selected through multistage random sampling technique. The constraint analysis by Garret's Ranking Technique (GRT) revealed that lack of awareness about the technology, lack of technical knowledge and technical skill, inability to take decisions are the major constraints hindering the implementation of simple beneficial technologies. This study identified a dire need of extensive extension efforts to aware the farmers about their major problems at farms and scientific dairy farming technologies. Extension education can play a pivotal role to motivate farmers at individual, group and mass level for accelerating technology use to achieve optimum and sustainable quality production for maintaining social, economical and psychological welfare of society.

Background: The research work was undertaken with the aim to investigate the prevalence and influence of associated risk factors on canine monocytic ehrlichiosis (CME), by employing conventional and molecular techniques in naturally occurring ehrlichiosis in dogs from the geographical area of Pune and Satara, Maharashtra, India. Methods: Evaluation of 60 blood samples from dogs exhibiting illness clinically suggestive of CME was performed for the detection of Ehrlichia canis by conventional microscopy and PCR-based assays targeting 16S rRNA gene. The collected blood samples were also utilized immediately for estimation of haemato-biochemical parameters. Descriptive statistics along with chi-square test of association were performed by using SPSS software. Result: Microscopic examination of Geimsa stained thin blood smears revealed Ehrlichia canis morulae in 5.00% (03/60) samples. Processing of purified DNA from blood samples by Genus-specific 16SrRNA PCR, with known primers resulted in amplification of 477 bp product of 6.66% (04/60) samples evident of CME. Further two step nested PCR assay using published species-specific primers yielded 387 bp product in 16.66% (10/60) samples indicative of E. canis. Younger, exotic cross breed females dogs were found more prone compared to adults. Indian non-descript male counterparts and winter season being more favorable for CME. Sequence analysis of randomly selected representative samples from Pune and Satara each when aligned with nine isolates from India and western countries showed complete homology.