Authored by Haben Fesseha*
Abstract
Livestock production is contributing a great role in the livelihood of the rural community although is being challenged by various constraints. A questionnaire based cross sectional study was conducted on 183 individuals (96 farmers, 73 factory workers, 10 peasant association and 4 veterinarians) from November 2014 to April 2015 to assess the existing opportunities and challenges on livestock production in Welkayt district. Individuals were interviewed to obtain information related to marketing information, animal health service and breed status, feed availability and management system on livestock production. Accordingly, the presence of Welkayt Sugar Project, availability of productive breeds (Begait), and proximity to Sudan and Eretria borders for the international market are some of the identified opportunities for livestock development in the district. However, out of the 96 farmer participants indicated insufficient animal feed in the quantity and quality (45.8%), poor technology supply (43.8%) and poor veterinary service provision (41.7%) as the major challenges in the district. Similarly, veterinarian expertise respondents replied as there were insufficient drugs and equipment’s supply in the existing clinic in the district. During the interview all the respondents reflected that there is declining of grazing pasture from time to time. As a result, the animal owners used animal feeds originated from factories and concerning the perception of the respondents since they have a lack of knowledge on the health and feed management of animals’ continuous awareness creation and improvement of the existing breeds using artificial insemination (AI) should put in place.
Keywords: Challenge; Livestock; Opportunity; Production; Welkayt district.
Introduction
Ethiopia’s livestock population is the largest in Africa. Currently, Ethiopian is estimated to have about 56.71 million heads of cattle, 29.33 million heads of Sheep, 29.11 million heads of goats, and 56.87 million poultry [1]. The role played by livestock in the economy of Ethiopia, as in many developing countries, is varied but substantial. Livestock contribute to the production of food (meat, milk, eggs and blood), industrial raw materials (wool, hair, hides and skins), input for crop production (draught power and manure) and export earnings (live animals, skin and hides). They also generate cash income which can be used to purchase food grain, seeds, fertilizer and farm implements [2, 3].
The livestock sector in Ethiopia contributes 16.5% of the national GDP, and 47.7% of the agricultural GDP, 15% of the country’s export earnings and 30% of agricultural employment [1]. This livestock sector has therefore been contributing considerable portion and still promising to rally round the economic development of the country. Despite high livestock population and existing favourable environmental conditions, the current livestock output of the country is still very low. This is associated with a number of complex and inter-related factors such as inadequate feed and nutrition, widespread diseases, poor genetic potential, market problem, inefficiency of livestock development services with respect to credit, extension, marketing, and infrastructure [2, 4-6] and feed shortage in quantity and quality have been a critical problem in Ethiopian livestock production system [7, 8].
Similarly, the above challenges are also expected to exist in Tigray region and Welkayt District in particular. For instance, challenges such as lack of animal feed in quantity and quality (despite existing opportunities like by-products of Welkayt sugar project), breed improvement problems, marketing problems and lack of market-oriented animal keeping, and management and health status problems are some of the constraints for livestock development in the District. There are also opportunities in the District like economically important breed (Begait), feed availability from the sugar industry process, infrastructure development in the environment and market opportunities to the existing factories and export to Sudan and later Eretria. Thus, this study was conducted with the objective of assessing the challenges and opportunities of livestock production in Welkayt District
Materials And Methods
Study Area
A cross sectional study using questionnaire survey was conducted from November 2014 to April 2015 in western zone particularly in Welkayt. The district is situated at geographical coordination of 13044’38” North, 37019’28” East. The District is bordered by Kafta-Humera and Tahtay Adyabo (North), Tselemti and Asgede-Tsimbla (East), Tsegedie and Tselemti (South), Tsegedie and Kafta-Humera (West). The district possesses 28 sub-districts of which 14 are lowlands. The mean annual rainfall of the zone is 1600 mm and annual temperature ranges from 38º C to 40º C in the lowlands and 100 c to 220c in the mid high land and high land of the western zone [1].
Study Design and Method of data collection
Pre-tested questioner was used to obtain all required information. Five sub-districts (Tsebri, Kalema, Maygaba, Maychaa and Bet-Mulu) were selected purposively depend on livestock population of the sub-district and its proximity from the sugar factory. The farmers and sugar project staffs were selected using simple random sampling whereas peasant association officers and veterinarians were included purposively. A total of 183 individuals (96 farmers, 73 factory workers, 10 sub-districts administration officers and 4 veterinarians) were interviewed during the study in district.
Data Management and Statistical Analysis
Data collected from interviewers were stored on separate Microsoft excel spread sheet and coded properly and analyzed using STATA version 12. Descriptive statistics was used to illustrate the frequency and percentage of the variables.
Results
Socio-demographic status of respondents
A total of 183 individuals (96 farmers, 73 factory workers, 10 peasant association and 4 veterinarians) were interviewed in this study out of which 18% were females and 82% were males (Table 1). Among the farmer respondents, 65(67.7%) owned local breed cattle, and 11(11.5%) had cross breed cattle. Besides, 71(74.0%), 82(85.4%) and 19(19.8%) have replied as they owned goats, sheep and camels respectively [Table 2].
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