Bart Minten of IFPRI-ESSP presented the work on "Transforming agri-food systems in Ethiopia: evidence from the dairy value chain" at ILRI on December 14, 2018. According to the study, rapid changes in the livestock sector is observed with transformation of agri-food systems in developing countries. However, good data to understand this transformation are often lacking. Relying on a unique combination of diverse large-scale datasets and methods, the transformation pattern of the dairy value chain supplying Addis Ababa was analyzed. Over the last decade, a rapid increase in urban consumers’ expenditures on dairy products was noted, especially by the better-off population. Relatedly, the number of dairy processing firms tripled over the same period in Ethiopia, supplying a significant part of these dairy products (especially pasteurized milk) to the city’s residents. The number of dairy traders rapidly increased as well, with competition becoming more intense over time. Upstream at the production level, we find improved access to livestock services, higher adoption of cross-bred cows, a shift from grazing to commercial feeds, an increase in milk yields, expanding liquid milk markets, a sizable number of urban dairy farms mostly supplying raw milk to urban residents, and an upscaling process with larger commercial dairy farms becoming more prevalent. However, milk yields are on average still low and not all dairy farmers are included in this transformation process as small farms as well as more remote areas participate disproportionally less and for them a stagnation and even a decline - depending on the data source used - in milk yields is noted. You can find the presentation here.
This presentation was organized by ESSP and ILRI. ESSP is a collaborative program undertaken by IFPRI and EDRI, whose objective is to help improve the policy-making decision process in Ethiopia.
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