Milk Production and Marketing system in Jimma Town, South-western Ethiopia Tadele Tolosa1, Mulugeta Tefera1, Yosef Deneke1, Abebaw Gashaw1, Karlien Supré2 and Sarne De Vliegher2 1Jimma University, College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Veterinary Public Health, P. O. Box 307, Jimma, Ethiopia 2Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Ghent, Department of Reproduction, Obstetrics and Herd Health, Merelbeke, Belgium Results Seventy-seven % of the dairy farms were owned by males whereas 23.4% by females. Overall, 36.2 % farm owners were performing only dairying, 53.2 % were involved in other activities (trading and civil work) and 10.6% were retired individuals (Table 1). Dairy production and marketing in the studied area was constrained by various problems. The major problems and constraints identified were: low demand during fasting (23%), shortage of feed (17%), low milk price and shortage of feed (15%), low milk price and irregular payment (10%), lack of artificial insemination and extension services (6%) and problems related to waste disposal. Introduction Dairy production is an important part of the livestock production systems in Ethiopia. Market-oriented smallholder dairy farming is an emerging business and is becoming an important supplier of milk and milk products to urban centres (Mokennen et al., 2006). In Jimma, market-oriented smallholder dairy farming is at its immature stage to supply the milk demand to the ever growing town. However, there is no study done which indicates milk production system, marketing channel and constraints related to those factors B a l e o r borenaa A f d W G s i Z n 1 2 S h N . F k K D g b u M t O m J 3 T y E N 6 28 23 31 6 64 53 4 Objectives To describe the dairy production and marketing systems in Jimma and to identify constraints for dairy marketing and development in the area Fig 1. Map of the study area Table 1. Demographic characteristics of selected dairy farmers Variable N Category Frequency (%) Gender 47 Female 12 (23.4%) Male 35 (76.6%) Occupationa l status Only dairy farming 17 (36.2%) Dairy farm + other activity 8 (17.0%) Dairy farm + Government employee Retired 5 (10.6%) Age 46 < 37 years 7 (15.2%) >38 – 47 years 17 (37.0%) >48- 57 years 14 (30.4%) >58 years 8 (17.4%) Educational status Illiterate Elementary /junior school High school 10 (21.8%) Above high school 22 (47.8%) Conclusions Dairy production is the domain of men rather than women. Most of the producers run dairy production as supplementary income. Farmers use natural mating for breeding purpose and use of artificial insemination is farmers’ quest. Milk reaches to the consumers by indirect routes resulting in a quality reduction and increase in price. Fasting, shortage of animal feed, irregular payment, low milk price, lack of artificial insemination service, adulteration and poor quality of milk supply are the main constraints. Materials and Methods Jimma is found in Oromia Regional State, located at 352 km south west of the capital, Addis Ababa. A total of 47 smallholder dairy farmers and 51 dairy milk retailers were interviewed using pre- structured questionnaires. The questionnaire captured household demography; cattle herd sizes and composition, milk outlets and milk production aspects for smallholder dairy farmers. The data collected in the study was stored in Microsoft Excel and descriptive statistics was employed to summarize the data. 37 51 37 This is PhD work done in the context of the IUC-JU project Contact: PhD student: Tadele.Tolosa@ju.edu.et & PhD supervisor: Sarne.Devliegher@UGent.be