ASSESSMENT OF RESILIENCE OF DAIRY FARMING IN BISHOFTU AND ASELLA AREAS, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA
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Date
2018-06
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Abstract
This study was carried out in Bishoftu and Asella areas, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia with the objectives to identify the coping strategies that dairy farmers employ to deal with the shocks and stresses that they encounter in dairy farming, and to assess the resilience of dairy farming activities as part of socio-ecological systems. The data were collected from December 2017 to April 2018 by individual interview of 120 households (60 from Bishoftu and 60 from Asella), field observations and 8 focus group discussions. A STATA, version 12 software was used for analyses. The result showed that daily milk production were significantly higher for the entrepreneurial dairy farmer as compared to typical dairy farmers in both rainy and dry seasons (P <0.05). Livelihood strategies of the dairy farmers were dependent on both combinations of on-farm and off-farm activities to deal with the risk which associated with dairy farming. Vaccination, treatment, deworming with commercial drugs, and keeping animal & barn hygiene were the main coping strategies to deal with diseases, parasites and pests in both study areas. Utilization of crop residues, supplementary feed, fodder, and non-convectional feed were the major coping strategies to deal with feed shortage. The present study indicated that typical and entrepreneurial dairy farmers living in the same geographic locations have different levels of resilience to deal with risks that affected dairy farming. The entrepreneurial dairy farmers in both study areas were relatively more resilient than the typical dairy farmer to deal with risks that are associated dairy farming. Overall, the present study indicated that the dairy farmers in Bishoftu area were relatively more resilience as compared to dairy farmers in Asella area. It was concluded that resilience is a prerequisite for achieving sustainability of dairy farming in the turbulent environment. Therefore, in order to develop the resilience of dairy farming, they dairy farmers should be aware of the capacity of resilience such as absorptive, adaptive and transformative capacity in an efficient and effective manner to deal with varies risks.
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A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies
Addis Ababa University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master Science in Animal Production
Keywords
coping strategies, coping strategies, resilience