Preparing for a Farmer-to-Farmer project in Ethiopia focused on Improving Dairy Management Practices

Getnet Assefa & Zelalem Yilma from Land O’Lakes Venture 37.

I did a lot ahead of time to prepare for this Farmer-to-Farmer training project through Catholic Relief Services and US-AID, but there is only so much one can do to prepare to teach farmers in a different country, especially when I had never been to Ethiopia before. While I’ve worked in several other African countries, I couldn’t finish preparing until I arrived and gained more local insights into the specific challenges and opportunities dairy producers face here.

The first meeting I arranged was with two leaders from Land O’Lakes Venture 37, a non-profit organization that is affiliated with that well known and farmer-owned brand, Land O’Lakes. They are doing amazing development work with farmers in many parts of the world, including here in East Africa. They just recently completed a successful project to advance the availability and use of artificial insemination in the dairy sector.

Secondly, I met with the staff at the CRS office in Addis Ababa to gain more insights on Ethiopia and the Farmer to Farmer program here. I also received a security briefing to ensure I’m aware of precautions I need to take to ensure I am safe over the next couple of weeks. Here are a few key insights that are interesting and helpful to better understand the current state of agriculture and the dairy industry here in Ethiopia.

General Agricultural Facts:

• Ethiopia is an Agrarian country with approximately 85% of all employment being related to agriculture.
• Agriculture represents over 37% of the country’s Gross Domestic product.
• Average rainfall ranges from 20″ to 71″ per year. But, that is not uniformly dispursed throughout the year. Some rains begin during “Belg” in March and April. But most of that rain comes during “Kiremt” or “Meher” (Summer) from June through Sepember.
• Elevation ranges from 400′ BELOW see level in Dalol to over 15,000′ in Ras Dashen. The Highlands have more plentiful forage for their cows during the rainy season, but need to have stored forage for the dry season. The lowlands are just the opposite. More to come on feeding cows here in a later post!
• 80% of all energy power used to prepare crop land is Oxen! Some larger farming operations use tractors, but the vast majority of farmers still use Oxen till the soil.  

General Dairy Farming facts

• Dairy farming consists of four different segments: Pastoralism (30%), Highland smallholder, Urban and Peri-Urban around major cities and finally Intensive Dairy Farming (2%)
  • Local cattle breeds make up over 97% of the dairy cows in Ethiopia, the remining 3% consist of cross-bred, and some pure-bred Holstein and Jersey cattle.
  • Average milk production is <2 liters per day
• Average age at first calving is over 4 Years! Better managed farms may be 2.5-3 years. In the US, we usually target around 22 months of age!

Now its time to head south to Ziway, Ethiopia to see where I’ll be staying for the next 2 weeks and to meet the Yared Abebe, owner of Yaya Dairy Farm. Below we are heading down the road from Adama to Hawassa along with our driver Tedy and in the back Assefa Degef, Senior Project Officer with Catholic Relief Services Farmer- to- Farmer project in Ethiopia (left) and Abnet Dereje my interpreter.