Factors Driving Discontinuance of Smallholder Dairy Farming -Evidence From Tamil Nadu, India

Research background: There is limited understanding of reasons, promoting discontinuance especially from dairying activities farming in mixed farming systems where exit happens earlier than the complete exit from agriculture, Purpose of the article: This study explores the households and farm associated economic factors that influence the farmer's intention to 'discontinue' from the smallholder dairy sector, in the changing context of increasing demand; poor participation of youth in agriculture; urbanisation and increasing role of non-farm sector in the Indian economy. Methods: A total of 384 dairy households representing three different crop livestock systems were selected on a proportionate basis from the existing datasets of dairy households for the research. Descriptive and binominal logit regression was used for analysis of the data.