Compliance with safety practices among dairy farmers in Bihar, India: Do smallholders benefit?

The demand for compliance with food safety measures (FSM) at farm level, an integral component of food security, is increasing. Yet, literature on the assessment of FSM at the farm level is scarce, especially for developing countries. To bridge the gap, this study investigates the status, estimates the cost, identifies the determinants, and analyzes the impact of compliance with food safety measures (FSM), using cross-sectional data from a survey of 684 dairy farmers in India. We use an ordinary least square (OLS) regression to examine the drivers of FSM adoption and we use the dose response function (DRF) technique to estimate the impact of FSM adoption on milk yield and profitability. The empirical results reveal that compliance with FSM at the farm level is low, with wide variations among milk producers. Drivers of FSM adoption include education, income, training, herd size, landholding, proportion of self-consumed milk, and households' perception of food safety. The DRF estimates reveal the positive impact of FSM adoption on milk yield and milk profitability. Keywords: food safety, compliance cost, dairy profitability, dose response function, Bihar, India Acknowledgement : We are grateful to the United States Agency for International Development for extending financial support to conduct this study through the Policy Reform Initiative Project (PRIP) in Nepal. We express our sincere thanks to all the dairy farmers who provided the needed information for the accomplishment of this study