SIREESHA PULLASUBRAHMANYESWARI .BANITHA. AMAHESWARA REDDY KURRI2024-07-052024-07-052023-05https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810211512One of the various animal husbandry practices that has significantly contributed to the livelihood of rural people is buffalo farming. The buffalo farming is believed to be a "treasure" for India's rural economy. Majority of the rural households benefit from having gainful employment. Keeping this in view, the present study entitled “A STUDY ON TRAINING NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF BUFFALO FARMERS IN ANDHRA PRADESH” was carried out. The present study was undertaken in the three administrative zones of the state of Andhra Pradesh and a total of 180 buffalo farmers were selected through random sampling technique. The objective of this study was to document the socio-economic profile of the buffalo farmers, knowledge of buffalo farmers and perceived training needs of buffalo farmers. The data was collected through personal interview and appropriate statistical procedures were employed to analyze and interpret the data. The study revealed that nearly half (49.44%) of the buffalo farmers belonged to middle age group and two-fifth (40.55%) of the buffalo farmers had no formal education. More than half (53.88%) of the buffalo farmers belonged to Backward caste (BC) and cent per cent of the buffalo farmers were dependent on buffalo farming along with agriculture as main occupation. More than one-fourth (26.11%) of the buffalo farmers had land holding and nearly two-third (63.88%) of the buffalo farmers belonged to medium income category. Majority (80.00%) of the buffalo farmers possessed medium dairy herd size (2.152-5.808 AUE). The frequently used information sources were progressive farmers and extension worker/veterinarian among the various personal localite channels and personal cosmopolite channels, respectively. Whereas, frequently used impersonal cosmopolite information sources were television. Majority (92.22%) of the buffalo farmers had membership in one organization and only few (12.22%) of buffalo farmers had leadership in any one organization. More than three fourth (78.33%) of the buffalo farmers had medium level of experience in buffalo farming and more than one-third (38.88%) of the respondents in the study belonged to early and late majority categories of innovativeness. More than two-fifth (42.77%) of the buffalo farmers had medium level of economic motivation and more than half (58.33%) of the buffalo farmers had medium level of scientific orientation. Regarding the knowledge level of buffalo farmers, it was reported that majority of the respondents possessed medium level of knowledge about all the practices viz. breeding (59.44%), feeding (57.77%), health care (68.88%) and management (52.77%) of buffalo farming. The results revealed that majority of respondents perceived the training needs in all the practices of buffalo farming namely breeding, feeding, health care and management. Majority of the respondents preferred training on repeat breeding management of breeding practices (TNI=60.74). Whereas, majority of respondents preferred training on high yielding varieties of fodder in feeding practices (TNI=90.00%) followed by healthcare and management practices where majority of the respondents preferred training on vaccination schedule for calf and adult animals and integrated livestock farming with training need index TNI=94.30 and TNI=82.41, respectively.EnglishThesis