Hygienic Milk Handling and Processing at Farmer Level in Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia

The study was conducted to assess milk handling and processing from January to May 2015 in Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia. To undertaken the study, multistage sampling method was used. In the first step, Humbo and bolesoserea woredas were selected randomly; in similar way, in the second step, three districts from each selected Woreda were selected randomly thereby a total of six districts were selected. From these each selected districts, a total of 137 households were interviewed for survey study. Data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary sources were obtained through a semi-structured questionnaire; it was pre-tested the questionnaire before the actual data collection was carried out. The result from the pre-test was used to implement for the final questions. The secondary data were collected from different sources such as books, research publications, journals etc. The collected data was analyzed statistically using SPSS (version 17) for windows by using descriptive statistics. The study showed that, hand milking was practiced by 100% of interviewed household. The respondents also indicated that milking of their cows was undertaken by women; most were milking their cows three times per day during the morning, day and evening time this was especially true in wet season. However, some also milk their cows only once a day in morning and sometimes twice a day in morning and evening. Majority of the respondents washed milkier hand (95.6%) and cow udder (86.1%) before milking however, only a few washed their cow udder after milking (14.6%). In the study area, about 16.8% of respondents used individual towel to dry the udder of milking cow and the rest did not use any towel. When clean 26.5, 72.8 and 1.7% of respondents used warm, cold and both warm and cold water respectively but no one used soap or other disinfectant to wash milkier hand or udder or towel. Majority of the respondents (83.0%) were using local plants for washing and fumigating for milk handling equipment. The plants used for the cleaning of milking and fermenting utensils were Hantecha, Gullo, Guntcha, Kosereatea, Azmate, zmano, nech shngurt, Korerima(local name).The study area also showed that , milk was processed due to multiple reasons such as to increase shelf life, to value- add, to have variety of products, to increase all (shelf life, to value- add and to have variety of products) and to increase shelf life and to value –add; almost all of interviewed households, milk were processed either once every day or every three day/every two day. All equipment and utensils used for milking, processing, storage and marketing should be disinfected and rinsed with water hot (detergent) immediately before and after use. In condition where no possible facilitating equipment and utensils; dairy cooperatives should be established so as to assist in selling fresh milk for small holder farmers