Empowering Rural Youth Through Scientific Piggery Farming Based on Breeding and High Cost of Feed in West Jaintia Hills District of Meghalaya, India

Abstract

This research study was undertaken to study the impact of piggery enterprise taken up by the rural youths under Attracting and Retaining Youth in Agriculture (ARYA) project in West Jaintia Hill District of Meghalaya. The study was conducted in five purposively selected villages in the district. From the study it was found that majority of the youths taking up piggery farming under the project were in the age group of 31-35 years (34 %) with the minimum qualification of 10th passed (58 %). Majority of the youths who have taken up this enterprise were male (70 %) and all of them belong to Schedule Tribe community having more than three years of experienced in pig farming. It was found that all of the selected youths reared pigs for breeding purpose with an average body weight of piglets recorded at 7.4 kg and adult average body weight of 80.8 kg. the mortality rate was found to be only 4 percent in comparison to 20 percent before the inception of the project. The gross income recorded was Rs. 6.24 lakh with a benefit cost ratio of 2.8:1. After analysis of the constraints perceived by the rural youths toward piggery farming using Rank Based Quotient (RBQ) analysis method, it was revealed that majority of the youths ranked “High Cost of Feed” as the most important constraints with an RBQ value of 96.6 followed by less availability of land (90.5), difficulty in procuring raw material for low cost feed formulation (87.3), high mortality due to Swine fever (80.8), lack of improved breed (75.6), no insurance facilities (71), price fluctuation (70.5), lack of proper marketing channel (70), poor management (55.6), difficulty in procuring piglets (44.3) and high cost of treatment (33.6). The number of the youth who were attracted towards this enterprise on the seeing the progress of the selected youths were 37 numbers.