Dairy production, processing and marketing systems of Shashemene-Dilla area, South Ethiopia

Two hundred forty dairy producers, both rural and urban producers in the four major towns representing the Shashemene-Dilla area in southern Ethiopia, were selected using a multi-stage sampling techniques, with the objective of characterizing dairy production, processing/handling, marketing systems as well as to prioritize constraints and opportunities for dairy development in the area. To characterize dairy marketing systems in the study area, a Rapid Market Appraisal (RMA) technique was employed. Dairy marketing systems were studied with the help of topical guidelines. Dairy producers were interviewed using a pre-tested and structured formal questionnaire. Two major dairy production systems, namely the urban and mixed crop-livestock systems were identified, and again classified into two categories based on the major crops grown as a cereal crop producing and enset-coffee producing areas. The average family size of urban and rural dairy producers was 7.19 ± 0.26 and 7.58 ± 0.23 persons, respectively. Dairy contributed about half of the income of urban producers but it made up only 1.6% of the total income of families in the mixed crop-livestock production system. Average farm size of households in the mixed system was 1.14 ± 0.99 ha, while more than 97% of the urban producers use their own residence compound for dairying, which is only 200-400 square meters. Average herd size per household in the cereal based mixed system (3.8 ± 0.42) was higher than in the enset-coffee based systems (2.3 ± 0.36). Out of the total herds of urban producers, 32% of cattle were local cows while 19% were crossbred. Husbandry practices like feeding, watering, housing, breeding, milking, calf rearing, waste management, and record keeping were also different between the two productions systems. An estimated total of 9,645,020 litres of milk was produced annually from 4463 small and medium farms in the four towns. The majority of producers (61.7%) in the mixed crop-livestock system process milk at home, while the majority of urban producers (79.2%) produced milk for sale. An informal dairy marketing system was the only marketing system in the area. Different market channels and market outlets were identified for different dairy commodities, butter being the one having the longest channel. Prices of dairy commodities were influenced by different factors like season, access to market/distance from towns, fasting and non-fasting days, festivals and holidays, level of supply vs. purchasing ability of the urban dwellers, and quality of dairy products. Constraints for dairy development in the area included: availability and costs of feeds, shortage of farm land, discouraging marketing system, waste disposal problems, genotype improvement problem, poor extension and animal health services, and knowledge gap regarding improved dairy production systems. The rapid urbanization, subsequent increase in human population and standard of living of the urban dwellers especially the regional town Awassa as well as the rest three zonal towns can be considered as a good prospect for the development of dairy in the area. Dairying in the studied areas can be improved by solving major problems of smallholder dairy producers through services related to feed supply, access to land, good marketing systems, allocating place for waste handling and management and through provisions of veterinary, artificial insemination (AI), credit, extension, and training services at reasonable time and cost. Moreover, as market is the deriving force to the production and productivity of dairying, encouraging private investors to establish dairy processing plants in the area may be an option as a permanent market outlet for both rural and urban dairy producers through an organized milk collection schemes

Is Income Inequality Endogenous in Regional Growth?

This study focuses on testing the relationship between income inequality and growth within U.S. counties, and the channels through which such effects are observed. The study tests three hypotheses: (1) income inequality has an inverse relationship with growth; (2) regional growth adjustments are the channels through which the inequality and growth are equilibrated; and (3) income inequality is endogenous to regional growth and its adjustment. Results, based on a system of equations estimation, confirm the hypotheses that income inequality has a growth dampening effect; income inequality is endogenous to regional growth and growth adjustment; and the channels through which income inequality determines growth are regional growth adjustments, such as migration and regional adjustment in job and income growth. Results have numerous policy implications: (1) to the extent that income inequality is endogenous, its equilibrium level can be internally determined within a regional growth process; (2) to the extent that traditional income inequality mitigating policies have indirect effect on overall regional growth, they may have unintended indirect effects on income inequality; and (3) to the extent that regional growth adjustment also equilibrates income inequality, such forces can be utilized as policy instruments to mitigate income inequality, and its growth dampening effects hence forth.Income inequality, economic growth, Gini coefficient, growth modeling, population change, per capita income, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Public Economics, I32, J15, O18, P25, R11, R23, R25, R51, R53, R58,

Maize and livestock: their inter-linked roles in meeting human needs in Ethiopia

This study was conducted to understand the roles and interactions of maize and livestock in meeting livelihoods requirement of Ethiopian households in the maize belt. Emphasis was given to the factors that determine the use patterns of maize in order to identify options for improving the use of maize as livestock feed. The specific objectives were to characterize the maize-livestock production system; to assess the availability and use of livestock feed in the system; to analyse the role of maize as food and feed; and to analyse the factors that affect the use of maize as livestock feed. The report is organized as follows. The first section is introduction. The following section presents methods of study. Section three describes the study area. Section four presents crop production in the maize belt area. Sections five and six deal with maize and livestock production in the maize belt, respectively. Section seven presents the multiple roles of maize, while section eight describes the feed marketing situation in the study area. Section nine concludes the paper and draws implications

Heading towards commercialization? The case of live animal marketing in Ethiopia

The current levels of contributions of the livestock subsector in Ethiopia, at either the macro or micro level, is below potential. Policy, technological, organizational and institutional interventions to improve the contributions of livestock to the national economy need to be based on an understanding of the constraints and opportunities available based on sound theoretical and empirical analysis. This rapid marketing appraisal study is aimed at assessing the supply chains of live cattle and live shoats in the four Ethiopian regional states of Tigray, Amhara, Oromia and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples region (SNNPR). Livestock production in Ethiopia is based on traditional technology and practices, and is subsistence oriented. Although efforts are being made to introduce and promote market oriented livestock production, with or without fattening, these efforts are miniscule compared with the size of the livestock population and the number of household who rear them. Hence, it is important to build on these efforts, evaluate them to learn lessons, and strengthen the extension service to promote the market orientation among the wider farming population. In most of the study areas, feed shortage was identifi ed as the most important constraint to livestock production. In some of the study areas, livestock diseases were identified as most important constraint, followed by feed shortage. Potential solutions to the feed problem vary depending on the resource bases of a particular intervention area. The relative bias of the extension service in favour of crop production has left the livestock extension service too limited. This calls for the need to invigorate the livestock extension service throughout the country. Especially, the development of market oriented livestock extension service deserves serious attention. Livestock credit supply falls short of demand in many of the study areas and some farmers complained about the periodic repayment schedule of the livestock credit. On average, there are four livestock market places per woreda. The primary markets in some of the Pilot Learning Woredas (PLWs) are fenced in which the respective municipalities charge buyers and sellers tax for sold animals upon exit. Farmers and traders in all of the study sites reported no or very little access to formal livestock marketing information. Farmers in all PLWs depend on actual market day information for prices and selling decisions. Livestock traders are almost exclusively male. Key informants indicated that there are no farmer associations or cooperatives involved in livestock marketing in the woredas, except in some areas where export abattoirs have established livestock marketing cooperatives and unions. The reasons for selling livestock, as reported by farmers, include the need to cover incidental cash expenses to fill household food defi cit gaps, buy clothing, cover school and medical fees, cover expenses for social events, down payment for credit and credit repayments, payment for labour for agricultural activities, buy other animals, and to purchase crop inputs. Forced sales due to shortage of feed and water during the dry period were also widely mentioned. The sale of male shoats dominates the sale of females. The age of shoats supplied to the markets in the eight PLWs ranges from 1 to 2 years. The most common weight of shoats offered for sale ranges between 15 to 25 kg live weight. In almost all PLWs livestock are transported mainly by trekking. Farmers and traders indicated a number of problems affecting marketing of shoats and cattle. The major ones include inadequate market places, lack of adequate supply of good condition animals, lack of holding (concentration) places, feed shortage, shortage of stock supply for fattening/reproduction, lack of market information and low price due to poor body conditions

Value chain opportunities for women and young people in livestock production in Ethiopia: Lessons learned

Both young people and women contribute significantly to agricultural production in the African continent, although these contributions are not usually explicitly recognized in official statistics and documents. In Ethiopia, women traditionally have been subject to sociocultural and economic discrimination that resulted in fewer economic, educational and social opportunities than men. The traditional development approaches that view the household as a unitary decision-making entity and the assumption that interventions targeted at the household head would trickle down to household members is the foundation of the exclusion of women and young people. In particular, women in married households are usually excluded from development interventions. Many governments in Africa have now started to take policy measures to recognize and enhance the contributions of young people and women in economic growth on the continent. Similarly, there seems to be strong political commitment in Ethiopia to ensure inclusive economic growth that will result in better gender equality and benefit young people. This working paper summarizes the lessons from the experiences of the Improving productivity and market success for Ethiopian smallholders and Livestock and irrigation value chains for Ethiopian smallholders projects in inclusive value chain development aimed at benefiting women and young people. It mainly focuses on the trajectories of the two projects in reaching out to women and young people in order to increase their access to resources, innovation, technologies and knowledge which could consequently improve their inclusion in and benefits from value chain development and governance. Experiences from innovative extension methods for inclusion are discussed. The paper makes recommendations for policy and development practice to improve benefits to women and young people from development interventions