Evaluate Perception of Crossbred and Indigenous Dairy Cow Managed Under Smallholder Farmer in Endamehoni District, Southern Zone, Tigray, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study was conducted in Endamehoni District Sothern zone of Tigray region, Ethiopia. Objective of this study was to investigating perception of indigenous and crossbred Dairy cow Managed under smallholder farmers in Endamohoni District. The total sampled numbers of household’s was 180 dairy cow owners, 90 each from indigenous and crossbred dairy cow owners respectively. The primary data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire and interview. For the analysis descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation was used. The study was carried out in Endamehoni District Sothern zone of Tigray region, Ethiopia. Objective of this study was to evaluate perception of indigenous and crossbred Dairy cow Managed under smallholder farmers in Endamohoni District. The total sampled numbers of household’s was 180 dairy cow owners, 90 each from indigenous and crossbred dairy cow owners respectively. The primary data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire and interview. For the analysis descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation was used. Secondary data was collected from different sources to proportion the data obtained from the survey. Before conducting formal survey, pre-test was carried out on the sample of respondents undertaken by using interview with households and key informants. For the analysis descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation was used. Indigenous breeds were highly preferred by farmers for their excellent attributes of low feed requirements, high disease resistance, easily availability at the market and good drought resistance ability. Adopters of crossbred Dairy cow were preferred on productive, reproductive performance and income from sale of crossbred cows. The result shows that, significant difference at (P<0.01) level of the non-adopter and adopters of indigenous and crossbred Dairy cow. The farmer’s perception on the preferences of indigenous and crossbred cows based on those parameters had shown significant at (p<0.01) differences. Accordingly the smallholder farmer cattle breed preference perception measurement characteristics; the indigenous breeds were highly preferred by farmers for their excelling attributes of low feed requirements, high disease resistance, easily availability at the market and good drought resistance ability.  Whereas, the major constraints of Dairy cow production in the study area were feed shortage, disease problem and lack of supplementary feed with technological constraints.

Keywords: perception, breed preference, age at first calving, lactation yield, income