Dairy farmers’ knowledge on climate variability in Southern Telangana Zone

Abstract

Dairy farmers' Knowledge on Climate Variability in Southern Telangana Zone, Data was collected by using the structured interview schedule. Six mandals from each district of Mahabubnagar and Nalgonda were selected purposively based on climate variability data and two villages from each mandal were selected by simple random sampling technique. Based on the available dairy farmers’ population in the selected villages, 10 percent of the sample size (254 respondents) from 24 villages in 12 mandals of Southern Telangana zone was selected for the study. The study revealed that majority (49.60%) of the dairy farmers had medium knowledge level on climate variability. All the farmers opined that the annual mean temperature and occurrence of droughts had been increased, annual average rainfall and ground water level had been decreased from the past 10 years. Majority (87.01%) of the dairy farmers indicated that cross-bred cows were more affected due to heat stress than local breeds. All the farmers in the study area articulated as “True” with regards to “climate variability is a serious problem”, “body temperature of the animal would be increased during heat stress” and “decreased availability of water for irrigation due to climate variability”. Similarly farmers also agreed that buffaloes are more affected than cattle due to heat stress (59.45%), severe heat stress causes abortions and retention of placenta in dairy animals (52.36%), respiration rate of the animal would be increased during heat stress (46.46%), human activities are also responsible for climate variability (42.52%), because of heat stress milk production will be reduced in crossbred cattle followed by buffalo and indigenous cattle (31.1%) and occurrence of rain in the presence of sunshine is an indicator of poor rainfall in the near future (5.12%).