Principles and Techniques of Veterinary and AH Extension

LARGE AND SMALL SCALE FARMING

• There are different means of describing scale of livestock enterprise viz. depending on how much of the commodity is produced and marketed by the unit within a time period, number of animals / birds maintained or area of holding over which the livestock enterprise is based. The advantages of large-scale production over small-scale production are called the economies of scale.
• Economies of scale have been classified by Marshall into
  • Internal economies and
  • External economies.
• Internal economies are those advantages of production, which occur as a result of decrease in cost of production as the result of expansion of output. These economies are available to individual firms independent of other firms. Internal economies are caused by two factors viz.,
  • Indivisibilities and
  • Specialization.
• Some of the possible external economies are
  • Economies of concentration
  • Economies of information
  • Economies of specialisation or disintegration