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ANALYSIS OF EXTENSION SYSTEM OF PAKISTAN DAIRY DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PERCEIVED BY THE FIELD STAFF

Jaffar Ali, Dr. Aijaz Ali Khooharo, Dr. Zaheeruddin Mirani, Dr. Badar Naseem Siddiqui

Introduction: Agriculture extension in Pakistan has faced multifarious challenges in the development of dairy industry. One of the major challenges is to increase milk yield of our dairy animals. One of the major reasons for low production is lack of appropriate extension services and hence non-adoption of improved livestock technologies among the livestock owners. The Government of Pakistan (GOP) has made efforts to increase the yield of milk and to raise the living standard of poor farmers residing in the rural areas. Since 1947, different extension programmes launched but these extension programmes could achieve limited success. In 2005, Pakistan Dairy Development Company (PDDC) – the project “White Revolution – Dhoodh Darya” was established as a special initiative to develop the dairy industry in Pakistan. PDDC has established various model farms in the country and also provided extension/advisory services to these model farmers though its extension programme. The extension system is the focal point for all agricultural activities. It is also a major source of learning of advanced agricultural technologies that must be transferred to farmers. Given the above-mentioned facts, the present study was conducted with the objective to analyze the extension system of PDDC. Materials and methods: All PDDC field staff involved in establishment of farms and the introduction of new dairy farming practices in the project area were selected. The researcher was personally conducted in-depth interviews with field staff respondents and thus collected data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted. Results: The results showed that cent per cent of field staff respondents were married while 77.8% belonged to middle age group. The data regarding ranking of various extension methods/media on the basis of extent of information delivered depicts that farm and home visits were ranked 1st with mean value of 5.00. However, 44.4 and 38.9% of field staff perceived that they paid weekly and daily visits to the dairy farmers respectively. Moreover, majority of field staff perceived that they provided extension/advisory services to dairy farmers concerning farm management, breeding, feeding, health care, marketing etc. In addition, installation of model farms on 50% grant was the major strength and ranked 1st with highest mean value of 5.00 whereas, difficult loan process was major weakness with mean value of 3.39 and ranked 1st as perceived by the field staff respondents. Key Words: Perception, PDDC field staff, extension system, Sindh province, Pakistan

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