Value Chain and Evaluation of Milk Quality in Smallholder Dairy Farms Around Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

Evaluation of milk value chain and quality of milk were assessed in selected districts of surrounding Addis Ababa from September 2016 to April 2017. A total of 180 randomly selected market-oriented smallholder dairy farmers were involved in a cross-sectional study that was carried out by way of questionnaire survey, rapid market appraisal, farm inspection and group discussion. The overall mean family size of respondents in this study was 5.63 \uf0b1 1.926 persons with average livestock holding per household of 23.93 ± 11.755 animals. Cattle were the predominant species representing 84.3% of the total TLU. The average number of lactating cows owned by the respondent farmers was 1.76 ± 0.920 local and 2.79 ± 3.445 cross bred animals. Average daily milk yield of crossbred and local milking cows were 9.11 ± 2.902 and 1.889 ± 0.6707 liters respectively. Overall mean lactation lengths of crossbred and local milking cows were 9.7 ± 0.46 and 6.26 ± 0.6624 months. Sixty milk samples were collected and the analysis of microbiological and physiochemical were carried out. The overall mean chemical compositions of milk for fat (%), protein (%) and solids not fat (%) contents were 3.5693 ± 0.10892, 2.9646 ± 0.04621 and 6.9632 ± 0.12175 in bulk Tank milk samples. The overall mean microbiological count of log (TBC cfu/ml), log (CC cfu/ml) and log (SCC/ml) of raw milk was 8.2285 ± 0.10041, 3.3363 ± 0.10010 and 5.1622 ± 0.07382, respectively. The proportion of raw milk used for household consumption was relatively small (5%). The major part (86%) of milk produced by smallholders is destined to market. The main outlets for raw milk identified were cooperatives (55.6%), processors (20.0%), vendor (20.0%), directly to consumer (2.8%) and hotels/restaurants (1.7%). Price variations (cited by 87% of the respondents), lack of fair market (72.2%), lack of demand during fasting (49.4%), lack of preserving facilities, and absence of quality based payment and no/less say in deciding milk price by producers were the major problems of raw milk marketing.