Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2017) 6(12): 3173-3181 3173 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2017.612.371 Measuring Attitude of Rural Youth towards Dairying as an Occupation: A Likert Scale Arindam Nag 1* , Sujeet Kumar Jha 2 , Asif Mohammad 3 and Sanjit Maiti 2 1 Department of Extension Education, Dr. Kalam Agricultural College (Bihar Agricultural University), Arrabari, Kishnganj, Bihar, India 2 Dairy Extension Division, ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Haryana, India 3 ICAR-NDRI, Eastern Regional Station, Kalyani, West Bengal, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction There are two important ways of thinking on the issue of rural youth vis-a-vis farming: Farming as the saviour of rural youth, or rural youth as the saviour of farming. Whatever may be the situation, one thing is quite evident that rural youth and farming are inter- related with each other. According to the latest Census of India (2011), the total population of India is 1.21 billion and 66 per cent of population is up to 35 years of age. Even if 18 to 35 years of age category is considered, 36 per cent population would be covered in it. Demographical distribution of India is very much skewed towards lower age. According to the latest survey of National Sample Survey Organization (2013), 64.1 per cent of rural people are engaged in the agricultural sector. In rural areas, especially among marginal and small farmers, dairying provides a supplementary income opportunity, and many a time, it may be only livelihood option for landless peasants. Livestock sector specifically dairying provides livelihood security. But migratory intention of rural youth towards urban area, had made the basic tenet of studying attitude International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 12 (2017) pp. 3173-3181 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Dairying plays a vital role in small and marginal farming situation in India. However, the flourish of dairy sector is not at same rate across the states. Various reasons have been attributed for this, whatever the reasons may be; one prominent aspect is rural youth‟s decision to choose dairying as occupation. So a study was conducted to understand the attitude possessed by rural youth towards dairying as an occupation in Bihar and West Bengal states of India. For this an instrument to measure attitude of rural youth towards dairying as an occupation was developed by following likert method. The reliability and validity of the developed scale was 0.81 and 0.83 respectively. The results showed that 41.66 per cent farm youth showed favourable attitude towards dairying as occupation whereas 61.67 per cent of non-farm youth showed unfavourable attitude towards dairying as occupation. The results indicated that attitude of non-farm youth was more negative towards dairying, implying strong intervention is needed to make positive attitude towards dairying among non-farm youth. Keywords Attitude, Dairying, Rural youth, Likert scale. Accepted: 23 October 2017 Available Online: 10 December 2017 Article Info