Farmers' perceptions of major challenges to smallholder dairy farming in selected towns of Jimma Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia: possible influences, impacts, coping strategies and support required.

Peri urban and urban small-scale dairy farming is playing a vital role in improving household income, nutrition, food security and employment for low income households in Ethiopia. However, it has been unable to meet the expected demand due to various production constraints. Thus, this study aimed to assess the farmers' perception of major challenges of smallholder dairy production, possible causes, coping strategies and support needed in selected towns of Jimma Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. Data were collected from 52 randomly selected dairy farmers using a semi-structured questionnaire. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to assess responses to questions in the survey. The results revealed that the main reason for dairy farming was milk production primarily for household consumption. Majority of respondents acquired their crossbred cows through purchases. The effect of demographic characteristics of respondents on herd size and milk yield showed no significant difference ( 0.05). However, there was a tendency for male respondents with university education and retired to own larger herd size (9.33 ± 1.33 and 8.00 ± 4.00) and higher milk yield (8.67 ± 2.67 and 4.50 ± 3.50 L) per cow per day. Feed scarcity (weighted mean index value = 0.371), lack of land (x̄ = 0.311), diseases (x̄ = 0.077), lack of improved genotypes (x̄ = 0.061), lack of credit (x̄ = 0.058), low productivity (x̄ = 0.036), lack of or inefficient artificial insemination (x̄ = 0.034), low milk prices (x̄ = 0.025), labour shortages (x̄ = 0.023), and water scarcity (x̄ = 0.004) were perceived as the major challenges of dairy farming. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that proper planning and implementation of appropriate institutional, technical, and technological interventions in an integrated approach with multiple stakeholders and dairy farmers would be essential to overcome the identified constraints of dairy production and to improve food security of dairy farmers in the study area.