Analysis of Milk Value Chain: In Case of Burie Town West Gojjam Zone of Amhara National Regional Stat, Ethiopia

Milk is an important cash diary product for its contribution to income generating, employment opportunity and improvement of food security to majority of the rural household. However, enhancing milk producers to reach market and actively engage in the milk value chain is a key issue needed in the study area. Analysis of milk value chain in small scale dairy farmers was conducted in Burie town to assess the position of small scale dairy farmers in milk value chain. Purposive and simple random sampling was used as sampling techniques to select two Keble and 61 respondents respectively. From thos respondents 33 from Keble 03 and 28 from 04 Keble to collect the required information. The data was collected through semi-structured questionnaire survey, unstructured interview and observation as well as analyzed by using mean, percentage and tabular. The study was used to show both primary and secondary data collected during the study period. The dairy value chain is not well organized in Burie town. The roles and functions of all the actors in the value chain are not clear and there is a weak link between milk producers, traders and other stakeholder. Different factors affecting milk value chain in small scale dairy farmers were identified. Among these factors reduction in volume of milk produced, high cost of different inputs (animal feeds, improved breeds), high barging power of trader, weak relationship of dairy cooperative(no members), long fasting period of Ethiopia Orthodox Church are identified as the major factors affecting milk value chain in small scale dairy farmers. Out of the total interviewed farmers about 50% of the respondents produced 5.8 L of milk per day per cow from cross breed cow. On the other hand, small scale dairy farmers produce 1.5 L of milk per day per cow from local cow. Hence, to improve the position of small scale dairy farmers in milk value chain there were a strong relationship between dairy cooperative and small scale farmers in order to get economic benefit and to secure market access from dairy cooperative. Thus, in order to develop Burie dairy farm, all the factors identified in this study need to be carefully considered and addressed. Moreover, coordination and intervention strategies should be designed and applied across the entire value chain in order to develop the dairy sector. Keywords: Value chain, Milk, Value chain actors, Burie, factor