Challenges and Opportunities of Milk Production in Urban Dairy Farms in Ethiopia: A Review

Ethiopia is one of the developing countries in Africa with a huge livestock population. The huge and diverse cattle populations, diverse and favorable agro-ecology for dairying, long-standing culture of dairy products consumption, increasing demand for dairy products in urban areas, potential of dairying in the country and favorable policy are indicators of dairy production. However, the production and productivity of dairy animals in general is insufficient and this results in short supply of dairy products. The main objective of this review paper is to assess the major challenges and opportunities of milk production in urban dairy farms in Ethiopia. Urban dairy farming is emerging as an important component of the milk production system based on cross breed dairy stock and purchased conserved feeds. Urban milk farming system is concentrated in and around major cities, and towns characterized by a high demand for milk and milk products. The challenges for dairying vary from one location to another or from one production system to another production system. These challenges can be technical like genotype related constraints and reproductive wastage, shortage of animal feed and water resources, shortage of land, animal health problems and non-technical constraints like institutional challenges such as inadequate extension and training services, limited availability of credit to the dairy farmer, absence of operational breeding strategy and policy, waste disposal, limited access and high cost of dairy heifers/cows. The opportunities of milk production in urban dairy farms in Ethiopia such as livestock genetic resources and production system, accesses to services, indigenous knowledge, demand for consumption of milk and milk products and income generation and employment opportunity. Dairying is constitutes an important part of the Ethiopian urban dairy sector, a careful planning of dairy policy, technical and institutional intervention and establishment of dairy processing industries are required for the generation of appropriate and demand driven technologies in order to attain sustainable dairy farm development. Keywords: agro-ecology, cattle, challenges, feed, genotype, milk production, opportunities, Urban DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/10-21-01 Publication date: November 30th 2020