Relationship Of Socio-Economic Characteristics Of The Dairy Farmers And Their Awareness About Icts Regarding Dairy Production Practices In Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

ICT has numerous and diverse impacts on the socio-economic attributes of the dairy farmers. In a cross-sectional research, a survey was conducted in district Sheikhupura by using face to face interaction with dairy farmers. 383 farmers were asked about their awareness related to utilization of ICTs regarding dairy animals’ production practices. Data were analyzed by using chi-square test for independent samples and linear regression model. Results indicate that    36% of the dairy farmers were middle aged (36-50 years) whereas, 35.8% dairy farmers had no education while only 12.3% of the respondents had more than high school education.in the case of landholding, 60.1% farmers had up to 5 acres, while 37.6% respondents had more than 20 years farming experience. However, 35.5% dairy farmers were earned 15-25k (PKR) per month. There was a strong association between age of the farmers and awareness about ICTs and negative trend shown that young aged farmers had more information a compare to old. In addition, there were strong and positive association of awareness about ICTs with education of the dairy farmers, size of landholding and monthly income of the respondents. While, there was no association between farming experience of dairy farmers and awareness about ICTs regarding dairy production practices. Multiple regression analysis explained that age, education and income had significant relationship with awareness of the ICTs. However, negative beta value of age shows that young farmers had more awareness about ICTs. While size of land holding and farming experience of dairy farmers had non-significant relationship with awareness of the ICTs.