Adoption of improved animal husbandry practices by dairy farmers of North Gujarat. 2. It's relationship with independent variables viz. multiple regression analysis and path analysis.

Adoption of improved animal husbandry practices in 240 respondents (selected at random), 10 each from twenty-four villages of six talukas of Banaskantha, Sabarkantha and Mehsana districts of North Gujarat was conducted by Ex-post facto research design by including sixteen independent variables, relevant to the study. Multiple regression analysis indicated that regression coefficient was highly significant (R2= 85.90). Five variables viz., education, caste, dairy farming experience, income and knowledge exerted highly significant (P<0.01) positive effect, whereas age exerted negative but significant effect on the adoption. Path analysis indicated that out of the 15 independent variables analyzed, 9 variables exhibited direct positive effect and 6 expressed negative direct effect. The knowledge, income and dairy farming experience showed the highest positive direct effect, whereas age and economic motivation had maximum negative effect.