Assessment of the Status of Hides and Skins Production, Opportunities and Constraints in Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia

The study was conducted at Wolaita Zone, Southern Ethiopia with the objective of evaluating the status of hides and skins production, opportunities and identifying major problems of hides and skins production and preservation. Multi-stage sampling was employed for all sampling procedures. Three districts were purposively selected based on livestock population, intensity of fattening, degree of slaughtering frequency and number of hide and skin warehouses. From each district, three kebeles were selected randomly. From the selected kebeles, 135 households were selected randomly for interview. Most of the respondents (91%), slaughter their animals in backyard or homesteads during different social ceremonies and religious holidays. The rest have an experience of slaughtering animals in both rural slaughter slabs as well as in their backyards. Majority of the households indicated that they practice slaughtering of large animals during festivals in group. Upon slaughtering, the use of appropriate knife for different slaughtering purposes was not common. According to the survey result, majority of the respondents (72%), use improper knives for ripping and flaying which clearly indicates that there was a probability of flay cuts as defects during slaughtering. Only 27.4 percent of the respondents declared that they have slaughter slabs in their locality and from these 78 percent responded that the slaughter slabs were insufficient and poorly designed. Similar response was also reported by the butchers that the design of slaughtering houses was poor and they were insufficient. Hoisting slaughtered animals for proper bleeding is rarely practiced in the study area. Different types of hide and skin preservation techniques were used by farmers, from which ground drying (57%) and smoking (24%) were common. The main constraints adversely affecting the production and utilization of hides and skins were insufficient slaughtering houses and facilities, poor slaughtering system, poor animal husbandry practices and lack of training on production and marketing of hides and skins with their decreasing index values of 0.208, 0.171, 0.153 and 0.136, respectively. Market access, livestock population and good habit of meat consumption were the first three primary opportunities with index values of 0.285, 0.207 and 0.204 respectively. Training should be given for hide and skin producers as well as collectors for quality hide and skin production and timely collection to reduce spoilage. Keywords: Constraints, Hide and Skin, Index, Preservation, Opportunities