Impact of Training of Small-Scale Dairy Farmers on Milk Production and Income in Ethiopia

Abstract

This paper examined dairy husbandry training impact on milk production and milk income under smallholder farmers’ management condition. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in two districts in Ethiopia and the data was collected from a total of 180 smallholder dairy farmers (60 of the participants were trained on dairy husbandry practices). Propensity Score Matching (PSM) technique was employed to construct suitable comparable group and to calculate the average treatment effect on the treated sample. The average treatment effect on the treated shows that dairy husbandry training increased milk production, volume of milk processed and milk income by about 21.7%, 56.5% and 22.5% respectively. This study confirms that training on dairy husbandry plays great role to bring change in dairy technology adoption which further enhance milk production and milk income under smallholder farmers’ management condition. Keywords: milk income; milk production; Ethiopia; propensity score matching; smallholder dairy farmers, training