Multivariate typology of milk producing households in Uttarakhand hills: Explaining profitability in dairy farming

Abstract

In this paper, using household data from two hill districts of Uttarakhand, we have developed a typology of dairy farmers with an aim to identify th efactors influencing profitability of dairying. Following mMultivariate statistical techniques, viz. principal component analysis and cluster analysis,were used to categorize dairy farmers were categorised into four homogenous clusters; (i)small dairy farmers with low family labour(37%),(ii) female dairy farmers with low level of education (12%), (iii) market-oriented dairy farmers (13%) and (iv) low income households (39%). Market-oriented dairy households were more profitable than others because of scale economies, while female dairy farmers with low level of education were the least profitable, implying a need for empowerment of women through training and institutional support so as to improve their scale of dairy production and competitiveness. The proportion of milk sold along with pPrice has been identified as the main factors influencing profitability of dairying . The other variables are namely age of the household head, level of education in family, presence of non-farm income, total animal holding, total land holding, dairy society membership, labour cost and feed cost.