Evaluation of Milk Production, Marketing and Quality in Meta District of Eastern Hararge Zone Oromia Region, Ethiopia

The study was conducted in Meta Distirict of Eastern Hararge Zone Oromia Regional State, with the aimed to assess general milk production and marketing, to determine chemical composition and microbial quality of raw cow's milk. Three kebeles namely; Biftu Ganama, Oda Chafe and Waligalte Bali'na were purposively selected based on their dairy potential. A total of 132 respondents were randomly selected from farmers (122),from consumers (6) and from collection centers (4). Interviewed was made using semi-structured questionnaire on milk production, constraint, marketing, milk handling practice and use of utensil for milk container. The result of the study indicated that, average daily milk production,milk for marketing and consumption were 1.96 ± 0.517 litters/day/cow, 68.9% and 31.1%, respectively. Lactation length, calving interval and age at first caving were 7.15 ±1.79, 18.82 ± 2.4 and 49.95 ± 3.68 months, respectively. Majority of the respondents ranked feed shortage as 1st most important constraint attributing to low milk yield and low milk productivity of dairy cows in study area. All farmers (100%) in the study area are milking their cows using hand milking after calf suckling. Most of the respondents (56.6%) use container gourd locally called "qabe" for milking and plastic jerry can (81.96%) for milk delivery to collection centers. The overall means for fat, protein, total solids, solids-not-fat and lactose contents of milk samples were6.23 ± 0.29, 3.4± 0.07, 14.12 ± 0.5, 8.23 ± 0.12 and 4.48 ± 0.14, respectively. Significant differences (P