Int.J.Curr.Microbiol.App.Sci (2020) 9(3): 3173-3180 3173 Original Research Article https://doi.org/10.20546/ijcmas.2020.903.363 Perceived Social Attitude towards the Role of Women in Peri Urban Dairy Farming in Costal Belt of Odisha, India B. Sahoo*, Anil Kumar, A. K. Panda, Lipi Das, U. R. Maradana, D. N. Sarangi and S. K. Srivastava ICAR - Central Institute for Women in Agriculture, Bhubaneswar-751003, India *Corresponding author ABSTRACT Introduction Dairy farming in India is a female dominated enterprise. About 75 million women as against 15 million men engage in dairying in India (Thakur and Chandar, 2006). Peri urban dairy farming offers employment and cash flow on a daily basis to the farm women and improve their livelihoods. In this system, intensification of livestock activities through modification of traditional practices and increasing external input is widely advocated to achieve higher household income of the livestock keepers. Most of the dairy units were usually located in peri-urban or urban areas and markets for selling milk and easily accessible offering employment options to a large number of people especially women. However, lack of awareness and adoption of scientific management practices in post-harvest milk International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 3 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com Role of women in Peri urban dairy farming was studied with respect to access and control over resources and services and constraints faced by them by collecting data from 60 respondents in Cuttack and Jagatsinghpur districts of Odisha. The results indicated that the access and control over natural resources by men were higher for cultivable land and grazing resources whereas livestock was mostly under the joint control of men and women. Women had more access to intra house relation (45.0%) and self-help groups (56.7%) whereas men have more access to banking services (51.7%), participation in meetings (43.3%), management of labour(36.7%) and management of revenue earned (41.7%). More joint control over participation of meetings (38.3%) indicates the importance of the gender equity in the growing dairy sectors of Odisha. Among the constraints, access to technologies (98.3%) was found to be the major limitation followed by resources (88.3%) and infrastructure (75%). A higher joint access and control over technology and communication reflected relatively gender equity in the society showing the path of progress in peri urban dairy farming. Keywords dairy farming natural resources the constraints Accepted: 25 February 2020 Available Online: 10 March 2020 Article Info