Hundred of dairy farms under mixed farming system atQena governorate in Upper Egypt were randomly selected to undertake a dairy technical package. Information was obtained through personal interviews. The study was conducted in April 2007 with the objective to analyses factors affecting the adoption of dairy production technologies. A questionnaire was designed and pre tested to collect herd data and all dissemination constraints faced by the dairy technical packages.
There are three groups of packages in the present study i.e. a) feeding packages groups (green forage conservation - crops residuals treated with urea animal feed supplements with molasses or minerals), b) milk marketing groups (milk hygiene- cooling milk – home processing) and c) herd management groups (artificial insemination – mastitis detection – hoof care – suckling systems).
Total herd size was calculated as Animal Unit (AU) i.e. 30.10, 17.90 and 15.70 AU in the EL-Waqeff, Qefft and Qena Districts, respectively. The most constraint faced by the adoption of dairy technologies was that 93.55%, 77.78% and 73.81% of farmers in the studied areas were not visited by the extension people. In addition, the effect of the adoption of dairy technologies on herd size was that 70.79%, 92.59% and 64.29% of dairy farms in the studied areas who owned large herd size adopted at least one of the technical packages. The feeding technology of ration formulation became the most adopted technology where 100%, 96.12% and 90.24% of farmers in the studied areas applied the formulation. Green forage conservation was not found for two reasons i.e. there were neither choppers nor leftover of green forages. Feed additives were found in 45.11%, 7.45% and 24.25% of the farmers adopting molasses technologies but some farmers said that molasses were not available and others said it was expensive. Chemical treatment for roughages was found only in the Qefft district of which 11% of farms used the urea treatment.
The milk market group concerned with milk hygiene where farmers used safe and healthy detergents (sodium tri-phosphate) for cleaning their milk cans and brushes and cloth. However, it was found that 96.77%, 74.07% and 78.57% of farmers in the three-respective studied areas did not care about milk hygiene because they used all milk for home consumption as there were no markets available for their milk.
The artificial insemination technique was conducted by 25.93% and 21.43% of farmers in Qeft and Qena Districts, respectively. In contrast, farmers in El-Waqeff District did not apply A.I. technique .Statistical descriptive and quantitative analyses were used in this study.
Form the present study, it could be concluded that extension people need continuous training programs for dairy production technologies. Also Transportation is very important to facilitate field days and seminars for farmers. Privet sector should contribute to make chopper machines available for cocerving green gorages.