Factors Affecting Milk Production:A Case Study in Andhra Pradesh

India ranks first in milk production, accounting for 18.5 per cent of world production, achieving an annual output of 146.3 million tonnes during 2014-15. Production of milk depends on various factors like feeding, breeding and management of the animals. It is evident that among the non-agricultural and allied activities of agricultural sector, dairying is providing gainful self-employment and generating the incomes to the rural masses. The cross breed variety of buffaloes is being reared in large number; as a consequence substantial improvement in milk yield is recorded. To study the milk yield and the dairying aspects of households in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh who are rearing the cross breed buffaloes, the data and information is elicited from the households rearing cross breed cattle in the two selected mandals, namely Martur and Cumbum. To study the factors influencing milk yield, the multiple linear regression model is adopted by the method of ordinary least square. The regression results for the total sample and also for sub-sample reveal that on an average 60 to 80 per cent of the variations in the value of milk yield per day per animal could be explained by fodder, green fodder and concentrates used per animal per day, and the age of the animal. Of these explanatory variables, fodder used per animal, green fodder used per animal per day are highly significant with positive impact and in terms of magnitude of impact on dependent variable, the concentrates used per animal per day is the highest. However, the explanatory variable, number of labour hours required per day did not show any significant impact on the dependent variable. The model fitted for various samples are valid as indicated by their respective p-values of the statistic.