Promoting Clean Milk Production: The Path for Milk Quality Improvement

Dairy is the integral part of agriculture, which is giving stability to it, with sustainable production. As we know, milk is the heart of dairy business, which is affected by various elements that are not in hands of a dairy farmer but he can manage them by using Good Animal Husbandry Practices (GAHP). The present study was carried out among dairy farmer of Rajasthan to know the relationship between their antecedent characters, knowledge, adoption and milk quality. Only those dairy farmers were selected who were selling their animal's milk in DCS system of RCDF. Out of 21 milk unions of RCDF four were purposively selected viz., Alwar, Bhilwara, Bikaner and Hanumangarh. A total number 120 of dairy farmers were selected by using proportionate random sampling. The intervening effect of knowledge and adoption on the antecedent characteristics of dairy farmers were found positive and significant with family education status, experience in dairying, social participation, herd size, annual income, milk production and milk sale; and for the milk quality at all the levels it was positively and significantly correlated. It was found that family education status, experience in dairying, social participation, land holding, herd size, annual income, and milk production and milk sale had positive and significant correlation with the milk quality at pail level of milk collection. These characters except land holding had positive and significant correlation with milk quality at DCS level. At dock level family size, social participation, land holding and milk sale had positive and significant correlation with milk quality; however, land holding had negative and significantly correlation.