PRESENT STATUS OF BROILER FARMING IN be Se. SELECTED AREAS OF DINAJPUR DISTRICT

Abstract

The study was conducted to find out the socio-economic status of farmers and prospect of broiler farming. Seventy five farmers who reared broilers were selected randomly from Sadar, Birol and Chirirbondor Upazila at Dinajpur district. Twenty one (21) variables such as age, education, land size, poultry farm size, total income, occupation, counselling, vaccination, training, strain, source of chick, price of day old chick, feed price, use of feed, market age, market weight, market price, batch per year, annual income from broiler, capital and feed conversion ratio were considered. Correlation coefficient were find out between age and education, land and education, education and capital, total income and batch per year, total income and income from broiler, capital and income from broiler, capital and broiler farm size, feed price and no. of bird, education level and income from broiler, income from broiler and batch per year. Significant positive correlations were found in the case of total income and batch per year, total income and income from broiler, capital and income from broiler, capital and broiler farm size, income from broiler and batch per year. Other variables were insignificant. In case of social characteristics like age, total annual income and land size, the mean and standard deviation were 36.28 + 9.28, 143000 + 71352.76 and 15.82 + 12.88, respectively. About 62.67% low income level farmers were involved in broiler farming. As high as 45.33% farmers were educated up to secondary level and next to 41.33% were in case of above secondary level. The average bird number of the farms was 860.93 and 64% farms were small category. In case of main occupation of the broiler farmer 40% were involved in agriculture & 20% were in poultry farming. About 24% farmers visited technical graduates for taking their counselling, 65.33% farmers vaccinated their birds regularly and 45.33% of the broiler farmers had taken training on broiler rearing. Among several broiler strains in the Bangladesh, as high as 33.33% farmer were rearing Cobb-500 strain. The price of Day Old Chick and feed were 36.15 + 6.28/chick and 43.05 + 9.43/kg respectively. The market ages, weight and price were 32.68 + 2.25, 1.57 + 0.106 and Tk 123.64 + 5.15 respectively. So, it can be concluded that educated and low income level peoples from different occupational background practice the broiler enterprises as a main or additional source of income.