2023, Vol. 8, Special Issue 5

Dairy farming is a vital supplementary business that improves farmers' quality of life, making it important to examine its profitability. The present study was undertaken to find out the cost and returns from milk production in the Rangareddy district of Telangana. Simple random sampling technique was adopted to identify the study area. Rangareddy district was selected based on the highest milk production and highest number of milk processing units. A sample of 120 milk producing households consisting where 60 producers from public enterprise (Vijaya Dairy) and remaining 60 producers from private enterprise (Masqati Dairy) were drawn randomly. A tabular analysis was carried to work out the cost and returns from milk production. The results of the study showed that maintenance cost of a cow and buffalo were 463 and 397.98 respectively. Out of total maintenance cost, was 78 per cent of variable cost and 21 per cent was as the fixed cost for cow and 75 per cent of variable cost and 25 per cent for buffalo. With respect to various categories, the maintenance cost of buffalo and cow was found a little lower in private category than public category for cow whereas for buffalo gross maintenance cost is lower in public category. The average net returns per cow and buffalo were observed ₹ 488.84 and ₹ 446.63 respectively, which is much higher than in case of cow. The higher returns in public category were mainly due to higher number of cows and better feeding of feeds and fodders than the other category.