Input supply system and services for market-oriented livestock production in Ethiopia. pp 1-19

Livestock production in Ethiopia has, for long, remained subsistence with limited market-orientation and poor institutional support. Farmers and pastoralists produce and keep animals for various valid reasons, with little market-orientation. However, producing for the market requires re-orientation of the production system and development of a knowledge based and responsive institutional support services. Institutional support services of extension, research, input supply, rural finance and marketing are key areas of intervention that can play a central role in the transformation of subsistence mode of production in to market orientation. Livestock production systems in Ethiopia can be broadly categorized into crop-livestock mixed systems, pastoral and agro-pastoral system, urban and peri-urban production systems. The demand for institutional support services for livestock development in these production systems vary significantly. The way extension system is structured in Ethiopia may not be in the best interest of farmers and pastoralists and lacks the responsive capacity to the demands for livestock services. In fact, most often livestock development issues are left to development projects and NGOs that have limited scope, coverage and duration. The major inputs for livestoc