Impact of Dairy Co-operatives on Income and Employment in Rural Meghalaya

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of dairy co-operatives on income and employment generation on the beneficiaries’ households. Primary data were collected from 100 Dairy Co-operative Society members and equal number of non-member households from East Khasi Hills, Ri-Bhoi, Jaintia Hills and West Garo Hills districts of Meghalaya state. Annually, member household earned an average net return of Rs.18515 from dairy farming which is almost double that of non-member which earned only Rs.9071. The Gini-concentration ratio for member and non-member group was worked out to be 0.58 and 0.68 respectively, indicating that incomes were more uniformly distributed in member group compared to non-member. Annually, dairy farming provided an average employment of 171.22 man days for member group as compared to 142.59 man days for non-member. On an average, member household spend 4.03 hours per day on dairy activities, where maximum time was spend on feeding of animals (1.30 hr). On the other hand, non-member household spend 3.38 hrs per day on dairy, where maximum time was also spend on feeding of animals (1.05 hr).