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

Two hundred forty dairy producers,both rurual and urban producers in the four major towns representing the Shashemene-Dilla area in southern Ethiopia,were selected production, processing/handling, marketing systems as well as to prioritize constraints and opportunities for dairy development in the area.To characterize dairy maketing systems in the study area, a rapid market appraisal (RMA) technique was employed.Dairy production systems, were studied with the help of topical guidelines.Dairy producers were interviewed using a pre-tested and structured formal questionnaire.Two were identified, and again classified to 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 tural dairy producers was 7.19+-0.26 and 7.58+- 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+-0.99ha,while more than 97% of the urban prducers use their own residence compound for dairying, which is only 200-400 square meters, Averae 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 practives like feeding, watering, housing,breeding,milking,calf rearing, waste management, and record keeping were also different between the two productions sytems. An estimated total of 9,645,020 litres of milk was produced annally 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 imformal dairy marketing system was the only marketing system in the area.Different market channels and market outlets were identified for different 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 poroducts.Constraints for dairy development in the area included: availability and costs of feeds,shortage of farm land,discouraging marketing system, waste disposal problems, gentype improvement proble,, 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 liveing of the urban dweellers especially the regional town Awassa as well as the rest three zonal towns can be considered as a good prospect for the develpment of dairy in the area.Dairying in the studied areas can be improved by solving major problemes of smallholder dairy producers through servieds related to feed supply, access to land, good marketing systems, allocating place for waste handling and management and through provisitons of veterinary, artificeal insemination (AI),credit, extension,and training servieds at reasonable time and cost, Moreover, as market is the deriving force to the production productivity of dairying, encouraging provae investors to establish dairy processing plants in the area may be an optionas a permanent market outlet for both rural and urban diry producers thorugh an organized milk collection schemes.