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Socio-economic study of Black Bengal goat rearing was carried out among 306 rural farmers distributed in four agro-climatic zones of West Bengal under “All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Goat Improvement” funded by Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Government of West Bengal during the period of April 2016 to March 2017. Mostly young goats were sold at 6 to 12 months of age and higher annual income from goat rearing has been recorded in General Category farmers (Rs. 10382.68 ± 385.77), followed by Schedule Caste (Rs. 6178.04 ± 373.87), Other Backward Class (Rs. 5190.15 ± 835.57) and lastly Tribal goat keepers (Rs. 4368.88 ± 611.04). Majority of the farmers kept 1 to 4 goats, followed by 5 to 8 goats, 9 to 12 goats, more than 12 goats and earned annually Rs. 3633.76 ± 374.98, Rs. 7042.10 ± 381.44, Rs. 9423.25 ± 593.11 and Rs. 24644.44 ± 1117.44, respectively. Most of the goat keepers in all the adopted villages were educated upto Secondary level with an annual income of Rs. 7278.65 ± 318.04, but higher annual income from goat rearing was recorded among the goat keepers who were illiterate (Rs. 8342.86 ± 1110.73) and lowest income earned by farmers educated upto Primary level (Rs. 6761.15 ± 379.01). However, mostly the women were involved in goat rearing in the project area and the income generated from goat rearing was Rs. 7150.00 ± 239.29 per family per year with average flock strength of 5.80 ± 0.22 goats, and the maximum annual income was recorded in Nadia cluster (Rs. 10675.15 ± 392.74), followed by Murshidabad (Rs. 6879.17 ± 871.93), Sundarban cluster (Rs. 5584.38 ± 384.43) and lastly Jhargram cluster (Rs. 3647.27 ± 578.08) with a flock size of about 8, 4, 6 and 4 goats, respectively; and an average annual income of Rs. 2861.00/- per doe per year enabling goat keepers to solve many family financial crisis which has a social value. Thus it can be concluded that income from goat keeping is not directly related with education level and caste of the farmers, but for proper care and management of their goats basic education is definitely required and more income is always related with larger flocks. Generally goat rearing with flock size of upto 12 goats is profitable thereby problems may be raised due to uncontrollable situations with existing resources of the goat keepers.

Key words: Black Bengal goat, Socio-economic association, Agro-climatic zone, Income.