Integrated livestock farming, Students, Youth, Farming.

Agriculture production and livestock production systems are interdependent (Kallah and Adamu 1988). Livestock feed on crop wastes (Al Hassan et al. 1983), however, grain occasionally serves as supplemental feed for animals that produce food. By laying dung and urine on the soil and providing animal force for farming and transportation, animals increase the fertility of the soil (Gupta et al., 2012). For farm households across the country to have stable incomes and nutritional security, integrated farming techniques need to be broadly implemented. This can be accomplished by giving farm families more power through appropriate information sharing on IFS-related technology, incentives, and extension support (Pattanaik et al., 2022). India is one of the most vulnerable Asian nations to natural catastrophes, with over 40 million ha of crops destroyed by landslides, cyclones, floods, and earthquakes (Silambarasan et al., 2022). Livestock farming is one of the important emerging self-employment ventures among the educated youth in the present scenario especially after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The educated youth are more interested in starting commercial livestock farming as a self-employment venture and they are in contact with the outreach centers of TANUVAS after the COVID-19 pandemic. The educated youth under disguised employment and foreign returnees of rural youth are showing enormous interest in skill development training and starting new livestock farms. This revealed that the youth population was showing budding interest in the livestock farm business. Hence, impact assessment of skill development training on entrepreneurship behavior of undergraduate students in integrated livestock farming in Nagapattinam district was carried out.

A survey with a pretested questionnaire was conducted among 124 arts and science college women students. The students of 78 out 124 who rear one or more classes of livestock were selected for the random survey. The questionnaire survey contains six questions each on breeding, housing, feeding and health management of livestock and poultry to assess the entrepreneurship behavior on integrated livestock management. The students who answered 50 percent and below questions were classified under the low awareness group (Group I). The students who answered above 50 percent of the questions were classified under the high awareness group (Group II). The same questionnaire was tested before and after the skill development training to assess the impact of skill development training on the potential entrepreneurship behavior of students. The students were given skill development training of ten days covering the theoretical and practical aspects of breeding, housing, feeding and health management of goats, cattle and poultry. The skill development training was concluded with an exposure visit to progressive model livestock and poultry farms in the district. The data obtained were compiled and analyzed statistically with suitable analytical tools.

In group I, 20.51% (16), 43.58% (34), 35.89% (28), and 66.66% (52) of students have less than 50% awareness of housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of dairy farming before skill development training, respectively. At the same time, in group II, 79.48% (62), 56.41% (44), 64.10% (50), and 33.33% (26) of students have more than 50% awareness of housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of dairy farming before skill development training, respectively. Post-training evaluation of students revealed that 97.44% (76), 94.87% (74), 98.72% (77), and 97.44% (76) of students shifted to group II (more than 50% awareness group) with respect to more than 50% awareness on housing, breeding, feeding and health management of dairy farming. Awareness of feeding management is higher than other dairy management practices, which might be due to more focus on feeding management during the skill training programme. Awareness and skills on housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of dairy farming can be increased through skill development training among the students. The increase in awareness and skill levels through scientific training was reported in earlier research in girls than boys (Thakur et al., 2022 and Zia et al.,2021).

In group I, 12.82% (10), 84.62% (66), 76.92% (60), and 93.58% (73) of students have less than 50% awareness on housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of goat farming before skill development training, respectively. At the same time, in group II, 87.17% (68), 15.38% (12), 23.07% (18), and 6.41% (5) of students have more than 50% awareness on housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of dairy farming before skill development training, respectively. Post training evaluation of students revealed that 96.15% (75), 98.72% (77), 98.72% (77), and 100% (78) of students shifted to group II (more than 50% awareness group) with respect to more than 50% awareness on housing, breeding, feeding and health management of goat farming. Awareness of health management is higher than other goat management practices, which might be due to more interest and attention of students towards health coverage of goat during the skill training programme. This might be due to the higher level of kid mortality in the prevailing goat rearing practices at Nagapattinam district (Table 1, 2). 

Table 1: Assessment of level of awareness on management of livestock and Poultry.

Group I - Low awareness group - Awareness ≤ 50 Percent; Group II - Awareness > 50 Percent

Table 2: Evaluation of entrepreneurship curiosity among undergraduate students on integrated livestock farming.

Group I - Low awareness group - Awareness ≤ 50 Percent; Group II - Awareness > 50 Percent

Group I - Low awareness group - Awareness ≤ 50 Percent; Group II - Awareness > 50 Percent

Awareness and skills on housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of goat farming can be increased through skill development training among the students. The increase in awareness and skill levels through scientific training was reported in earlier research (Sharma & Singh, 2023; Meena et al., 2023).

In group I, 89.74% (70), 92.30% (72), 82.05% (64), and 91.02% (71) of students have less than 50% awareness on housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of goat farming before skill development training, respectively. At the same time, in group II, 10.25% (8), 7.69% (6), 17.95% (14), and 8.97% (7) of students have more than 50% awareness on housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of poultry farming before skill development training, respectively. Post training evaluation of students revealed that 100% (78), 97.43% (76), 98.72% (77), and 100% (78) of students shifted to group II (more than 50% awareness group) with respect to more than 50% awareness on housing, breeding, feeding and health management of poultry farming. Awareness on health and housing management is higher than other poultry management practices, which might be due to more interest and attention of students towards health coverage of poultry with comfortable housing to prevent existing economic losses in poultry farming. Awareness and skills on housing, breeding, feeding, and health management of poultry farming can be increased through skill development training among the students. The increase in awareness and skill levels through scientific training was reported in earlier research (Kumar et al., 2024; Thakur et al., 2021; Patil et al., 2020 and Kadagi et al., 2020).

Post training evaluation of students for livestock entrepreneurship revealed that 89.74% of students showed their willingness to start up integrated livestock farming after graduation as self-employment ventures, whereas, only 10.26% of students accepted livestock entrepreneurship start-up in pre-training evaluation. This indicated that skill training of educated youth will motivate them to enter into the livestock farming business. The farming turnover will increase considerably when educated youths carry out livestock farming. The credit facility, veterinary consultation facility, input availability, quality of inputs, farm machinery like chaff cutter, milking machine, silo, silage bag and quality veterinary services are the essential factors that favorably affect the productivity of livestock farming.

Group I - Low awareness group - Awareness ≤ 50 Percent; Group II - Awareness > 50 Percent

The skill development training of rural educated youth will enlighten their mind to start up their livestock farming business as self-employment opportunities.

Suresh C., Sujatha V., Bakyaraj S. and Sujatha U. (2024). Evaluation of the Impact of Skill Development Training on Entrepreneurial Awareness of Undergraduate students in Integrated Livestock Farming. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 16(5): 43-47.