Cattle production and marketing systems in doyogena, damboya and tembaro districts of southern Ethiopia

Abstract

A study on cattle production and marketing systems was conducted in three selected woredas of Kembata Tembaro Zone Southern, Ethiopia. The specific objectives of the study were to assess cattle production systems, cattle and cattle product marketing systems and to assess opportunities and constraints of cattle production and its products in the study area. Producer’s interview was the sources of the primary data while secondary data was taken from Kembata Tembaro Zone Southern, Ethiopia. Stratified sampling method was employed to stratify the Kembata Tembaro Administrative Zone Districts based up on agro ecology as highland (greater than 2500 m.a.s.l.), mid- land (1501 to 2500 m.a.s.l.) and lowland (below 1500 m.a.s.l.). Among each selected agro ecology, two PA’s were purposively selected based on cattle potentials. A total of 180 households were randomly selected using systematic random sampling method from the six PA’s. Questionnaire based survey as wel as PRA techniques were employed to collect both the quantitative and qualitative data. From the total, 98.9 % of the respondents practiced crop and livestock production. The mean family size was 7.08±2.156 (Mean ± SE) heads per household and it was significantly different (P<0.05) among the three agro ecology. The mean total cattle herd size of the households was 7.44 ±0.272 (Mean ± SE) heads, and significantly different (P<0.05) among the three agro ecology .The mean daily milk yield and lactation yield of the indigenous cow was 1.76±0.043 liters per day per cow and 420.47± 11.831 liters, respectively. The amount of milk yield produced in each respective study areas were significantly different (P<0.05) among the three agro ecology. Age at first calving and calving interval of the local cow were 55.47± 0.441 and 20.52± 0.141months, respectively. In the study area, 72.6 % of the respondents preferred to sell butter than other dairy products. The major crop residues used for cattle feeding was wheat straw (33.9 %). Farmers in the area widely used the crop residues as the cattle feed sources when the feed shortage is occurred during the dry season. About 77.8% of the respondents use the river as water sources for cattle. Majority of the respondents (50.6 %) use the natural mating. Cattle fattening is not well developed so that only 39.4 % of the respondents practice fattening. For those farmers who practiced fattening, they sell their fattened cattle at district’s main market. Pastorolosis, Pneumonia, Black leg and Ticks were the major disease xvii challenges in the areas. In general, cattle production and marketing systems were constrained mainly by feed and water shortage especially during the dry season, resulting in poor performances of the indigenous cows. Future effort should be made to alleviate the major constraints and for effective utilization of the cattle production potential of the study area.