MJAS

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Ranchers? knowledge towards sustainable swiftlet ranching

Vaiappuri,S.K.N.¹, Nitty, H.K¹*., Ismail.A.L.¹ and Kamaruddin, M.I.²

¹, Department of Agribusiness and Information Systems, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia,
²Department of Veterinary Services Malaysia

Malaysian J. Anim. Sci. 2012 15(1): 27-35

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The recent drastic increase of swiftlet bird houses can pose a serious threat to the sustainability in swiftlet ranching. The possible outcomes need proper attention, so that further growth of the swiftlet industry will not be constrained. The sustainability of this industry therefore is strongly associated with the rancher?s knowledge of it. Thus, this study was aimed to investigate the knowledge of swiftlet ranchers towards sustainable swiftlet ranching. A total of 136 ranchers from Johor were selected as the respondents for this study. Results revealed that 71.3% of the respondents were highly knowledgeable about sustainable swiftlet ranching. Age, educational level, frequency of attending courses or seminars, years of operation and yield were found to be significantly related to the knowledge level of the respondents towards sustainable swiftlet ranching. The study recommends that both the government and private extension agencies need to play a vital role in contributing sustainable ranching knowledge to the ranchers. Their role in extension services need to be optimised in order to maintain and update the ranchers as highly knowledgeable players and thus keeping the industry sustainable for the long term.