Constraints, opportunities and motives of cattle fattening practices in urban and peri-urban kebeles of Kombolcha town, South Wollo Zone, Ethiopia

摘要

The present study was conducted to investigate constraints, opportunities, and motives of cattle fattening in the urban and peri urban kebeles of Kombolcha town. Complete enumeration technique was used to select urban and peri urban kebeles. Similarly, to select individual cattle fatteners complete enumeration technique were applied. A total of 147 cattle fattener were included and interviewed. In addition to structured questionnaire interview, group discussions and key informant interviews were carried out to support the survey data. The major constraints come across by urban cattle fatteners in the study town were feed price increment (1st), recurrent drought & feed shortage (2nd), capital problem (3rd), credit based market (‘dube’) (4th), illegal brokers (5th), inadequate practical training support (6th) difficulty to compare with rural fatteners (7th), inadequate veterinary services (8th), limited access to credit (8th), lack of processed & mixed ration feed suppliers (10th), shortage of land for expansion (11th), feed supply organization provides for specific group (12th), lack of cooperation with in the association member’s (13th), road problem to enter the farm (13th), unpredictable cattle market & seasonal price variation (13th), and illegal and non-licensed cattle fattener & trader influence (17th) in their order of importance. On the other hand, major constraints recognized up on peri urban cattle fattening practices were recurrent drought & feed shortage (1st), feed price increment (2nd), loose of farming land (3rd), inadequate practical training support (4th), and illegal brokers (5th) in their order of significance Almost all of the household heads involved in cattle fattening in Kombolcha town were male headed (92.7%) when compare to female’s (7.3%).The overall cattle fatteners involved in the study were between the ages of 24.9 to 50.4 years. The average age was 37.6 years. In the current study town, about 9.4% and 13.6 %, were taken religious and basic education ‘Meserete timihert’ whereas, the rest accounted for about 12.5%, 13.7%, 31.2% and 19.8% had formal educational background of 1st cycle primary school (1-4), 2nd cycle primary school (5-8), secondary school (9-10), and preparatory school (11-12), respectively. The average family size of the households is 7.4 persons per family. Farming (56.3%), cattle fattening (43.1%), and civil servant (0.6 %) were the identified income source of cattle fatteners in Kombolcha town. All of the participants in urban kebeles were fatten cattle’s for income (16 %) and profit (84 %) purpose, similarly, peri urban areas keep fattening cattle for similar reason with 48.1 % and 51.9%, respectively. In addition to the identified constraints the cattle fattening sector in Kombolcha town tightened with so many challenges which needs short and long term solution. Better housing system (clustering approach), absence of endemic fattening cattle health problem, presence of suitable and conducive environment, being there of two functional flour factories, increase in demand for meat, federal as well as regional government emphasis, motives and interest of the educated society to be part of the sector, availability of infrastructure such as road, and electric access were the identified opportunities for cattle fattening sector in Kombolcha town.