Knowledge, attitudes and biosecurity practices among the small-scale dairy farmers in Sylhet district, Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: In the context of zoonosis, Bangladesh's small-scale dairying is yet to frame satisfactory levels due to poor biosecurity practices.

Objectives: This study intended to reveal the degree of knowledge, attitudes and biosecurity practices among Sylhet district, Bangladesh's small-scale dairy farmers. We also focused on the association between biosecurity practices and the incidence of non-specific enteritis in humans.

Methods: A questionnaire-based survey was conducted on the farmers' KAP via personal interviews of 15 farmers from the randomly selected fifteen small-scale dairy farms. The questionnaire was developed with 6 questions for knowledge, 6 questions for attitude and 12 questions for the practice of biosecurity measures. Alongside that, data on the number of non-specific enteritis cases experienced by the farmers or their family members were also recorded. Spearman correlation was used to find out the correlation among KAP variables and between practice scores and non-specific enteritis incidences.

Results: We found an insignificant (p > 0.05) influence of demographic characteristics over knowledge, attitude and biosecurity practices. Significant (p < 0.05) and strong correlations were found in knowledge-attitude (r = 0.65), knowledge-practice (r = 0.71) and attitude-practice (r = 0.64). Incidences of non-specific enteritis and biosecurity measures' practice were also strongly correlated (r = -0.9232) and statistically significant (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: Our study suggests that increasing knowledge and developing a good attitude are necessary to increase the adaptation of biosecurity measures as three of these factors are correlated. Moreover, farm biosecurity measures are closely related to human health.

Keywords: Bangladesh; KAP analysis; farm biosecurity; non-specific enteritis; small-scale dairying.