The Impact of Agricultural Credit and Farmer Trainings on Small Holder Dairy Production in Southern Region in Sri Lanka

Potential growth of dairy sector is highest and more reliable compared to crop sector, indicating that dairy sector can play vital role to increase income among farmers in rural areas than crop sector in Sri Lanka. Credit and farmer training in management ability have been major concerns of dairy development efforts. Therefore, this study wasconductedto assess the impact of credit and farmer training on small holder dairy sector and to estimate its contribution to farmer’s income. The study was carried out in southern region of Sri Lanka. Purposive sampling approach was adopted and data were collected from 119 farmers through pre-tested structured questionnaire by personnel interview. Twenty one percents of respondents had taken credit and 72% of farmers had received subsidies to develop their dairy production capacity. Almost 97% of farmers had received knowledge for different activities in dairy production and 45% of them had participated for trainings which related to dairy. The milk yield of studied sample had correlation with credit amount (r=0.500, p=0.018), value of subsidy (r=0.350, p=0.003) and extension and training (r=.453, p=.000) which received by farmers. The farmers with higher level knowledge on management practices were acquiring and demanding of credit and farmer training compared to farmers with low knowledge. Further herd size had strong positive correlation with the amount of credit obtained. The results clearly illustrated credit and farmer training in dairy sector could considerably facilitate to increase income of dairy farmers and assists to develop dairy sector in small holder context.