A Research on Satisfaction Levels of Water Buffalo Breeders in Sivas Province, Türkiye

Abstract

Buffaloes can adapt to different regional and climatic conditions, yield high quality milk and meat products and are suitable for organic animal husbandry, which provides significant advantages in livestock raising. In this study, a total of 122 buffalo breeders living in the center of Sivas province, Şarkışla and Suşehri districts were examined in terms of age, gender, educational level and satisfaction with breeding buffaloes, reasons for breeding, problems encountered in breeding and expectations using a survey. The participants were mostly middle-aged individuals (89.3%). It was found that 67.2% of them graduated from primary school while 12.3% graduated from high school. It was revealed that the participants were breeding buffaloes in order to meet the daily needs of their homes (29%), were pleased with breeding them (91.8%) and had such positive views that they advised their children to breed buffaloes (62.7%). 64 % of the participants stated that they were satisfied with buffalo breeding for quality of dairy products and the high prices of these products. The buffalo breeders reported their breeding problems as high costs of fodder (35%), low meat price (25%) and the lack of market (10%) while they predicted that the buffalo breeding may become more profitable (95.6%) with the help of solutions to be made by the authorities. In order to achieve this aim, the breeders declared their demands to increase prices of their products sold in the market (34.4%), and loan limits for purchasing fodder and husbandry (33.7%). A significant relationship was found between the participants’ gender and the views that their work could be made profitable (p<0.001). It was also revealed that there was a significant relationship between the satisfaction level of the participants and recommending breeding buffaloes to their children (p<0.05) and the views that their work could be made profitable (p<0.001). When theproblems of buffalo breeders in Sivas province, expectations from the authorities and solutions to be offered areconsidered as a whole, it can be interpreted that increasing the quality of production, preference of consciousbreeding practices in animal selection, pricing that will guarantee production and developing new marketingopportunities will be beneficial to overcoming problems.