Assessment of constraints and opportunities in small-scale beef cattle fattening business: Evidence from the West Hararghe Zone of Ethiopia

The study was conducted in Gemachis and Doba districts of West Hararghe Zone of Ethiopia to investigate the major constraints and opportunities of small-scale cattle fattening practices, and identify cattle selection criteria used for fattening purpose. Multi stage sampling procedure was employed to obtain a total of 171 cattle fatteners. The questionnaire based formal survey was conducted using pre tested semi-structured questioners to generate quantitative data. Besides, qualitative data were gathered through group discussions and key informant interviews to corroborate the survey data. Secondary date was obtained from published and unpublished documents. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and rank index. The study revealed that body condition (1st), breed type (2nd), frame size (3rd), cot color (4th) was the primary cattle selection criteria for fattening purpose. Illegal brokers(1st), recurrent drought and feed shortage(2nd), water scarcity(3rd), feed price increment(4th), weak extension service (5th),lack of initial capital(6th),informal traders(7th),inadequate veterinary service(8th), management knowhow(9th), unpredictable beef cattle market (10th), shortage of improved fodder species (11th), inadequate infrastructures (12th), limited access to credit (13th), and absence of functional fl our factories (14th) were the major constraints in small-scale cattle fattening business. Current increase in demand for meat in the country and export markets, presence of different cattle breed, and high preference of Harar beef cattle in market, indigenous knowledge of cattle fattening, absence of endemic livestock health problem, high government emphasis to the sub-sector, proximity to large city and export abettors are the major identifi ed opportunities. Hence, the study suggest that, concerned stakeholders should give due attention and policy support to strengthen the existed indigenous of cattle fattening practice and solve branded constraints through establishing marketing cooperatives to improve productivity and revenue derived cattle fattening industry. Research Article Assessment of constraints and opportunities in small-scale beef cattle fattening business: Evidence from the West Hararghe Zone of Ethiopia Adunea Dinku* Oda Bultum University; College of Agriculture; Department of Agricultural Economics; Chiro (Aseba Teferi), Ethiopia Received: 01 July, 2019 Accepted: 30 July, 2019 Published: 01 August, 2019 *Corresponding authors: Adunea Dinku, Oda Bultum University; College of Agriculture; Department of Agricultural Economics; Chiro (Aseba Teferi), Ethiopia, Tel: +251910775100; E-mail:


Introduction
In developing countries including Ethiopia poor people's live disproportionally in rural areas and directly or indirectly depends on subsistence and small-scale agriculture, which are partly integrated into markets for their livelihoods [1,2]. Thus, development in this subsistence small-scale agriculture is seen as imperative for sustainable pro-poor economic development, improvement in food security and poverty mitigation in affected region [3,4]. Yet, in developing countries especially in Ethiopia, the feat of the agricultural sector is unsatisfactory and unable to go with the increasing of population at alarming rate. There also exist a signifi cant productivity gap between Africa especially Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the rest of the world [5].
The majority of the SSA countries where most of their people highly depend on agriculture as a source of livelihood have not been able to guarantee food security at all levels [6]. This is also the case for Ethiopia, were people still suffering from persistent and widespread poverty and food insecurity [7]. So, to embark upon poverty, agricultural sector which is a backbone for rural development and poverty reduction has to get due consideration. This calls for diversifi cation of agricultural activities to improve the income and livelihood of the poor people in the country.
Through for sustainable pro-poor economic development, livestock sub-sector should be taken into account as it plays an indispensable role in the national economy. At present, livestock contributes about 20% of the GDP, supporting the livelihoods of 70 % of the population and generating about 11% of annual export earnings [8]. As the country has a large livestock population, which ranks fi rst in Africa and tenth in the world, it has much to gain from the growing global markets for livestock products [8].
Currently, it was believed that, cattle fattening activities among livestock production has greater potential for improving the living standards of people through enhancing nutrition arising from meat consumption and incomes from sale of beef cattle and its products. At the household level, livestock plays vital economic and social roles in the lives of pastoralists and agro-pastoralists. In addition, beef cattle fulfi ll an important function in coping with shocks, accumulating wealth, and serving as a store of value in the absence of formal fi nancial institutions and other missing markets [9][10][11]. The rising population, income levels and urbanization across the developing world are driving demands for livestock and livestock products. Improvement of access to market and the establishment of an effi cient value chain are therefore essential in order to enhance livestock farmers to excel [12,13]. However, currently, the level of beef cattle productivity is low in Ethiopia. The study affi rmed that, lack of proper livestock management, feed shortage and low standards of feeding, inadequate marketing information, especially on prices, poorly developed marketing infrastructure, weak institution, legal and regulatory framework and inadequate access to fi nancial services for livestock rearing activities are among the major factors constraining cattle fattening industry [13][14][15].
Besides, feed price increment, recurrent drought and feed shortage, fi nancial problem, lack functional fl our industries, inaccessibility and unpredictable cattle market, illegal brokers in cattle market, livestock disease, water and land shortage are among other major constraints come across by cattle fatteners [16,17]. Another studies also argued that inadequate market information, lack basic infrastructure, facilities like cattle pen, weighing scale, water troughs, feed for their cattle, especially the smallholder resource-poor livestock producers are among factors which prevent farmers to benefi t from the potential marketing of their beef cattle [18,19].
The study affi rmed that the production of quality and safe meat has the potential for import substitution and increased exports earning. Yet, beef productivity (110 kg carcass /head) is about 25-30% lower than the average for East Africa (143 kg/ head) [13]. The total herd off take is estimated at 7% annually for cattle and 33% and 37% for sheep and goats, respectively which is much lower than other countries [15]. It is thus critical to examine the constraints and opportunities exist in this subsector for cattle fattening industry to develop in the country.
Many scholars have undertaken their studies for instance on beef cattle production system, beef cattle value chain, beef and animal feed value chain, constraints and opportunities in the beef cattle value chain and others in Ethiopia [16][17][18][20][21][22][23]. However, in light of their fi ndings there are no doubt that, little attention had given to the constraints and opportunities in small-scale cattle fattening industry in Ethiopia thereby the study areas. Therefore, this study aimed at assessing the constraints and opportunities in small-scale beef cattle fattening practice that needs improvements in order to increase income of the smallholder farmers in particular and livestock keepers in general.

Description of the study area
This study was undertaken in the eastern part of Ethiopia specifi cally in West Hararge zone of Oromia National Regional State. From the selected zone, two districts namely Gemachis and Doba districts were selected based on their extent of cattle fattening business. Gemechis district is located at 343 km east of Addis Ababa and about 17 km south of Chiro, capital town of the Zone. The district is situated at the coordinate between 8040'0" and 9004'0" N and 40050'0" and 41012'0" E. It's found within 1300 to 2400 m.a.s.l. It shares borders with Chiro district in the West and North, Oda Bultum district in the South and Mesala district in the East. The district covers an area of 77,785 ha and it has 35 rural and one urban kebeles [24]. Agroecologically, the district has highland (15%), midland (45%) and lowland (40%) climatic zones and it receives bi-modal average annual rainfall of 850 mm [24]. The average temperature of the district is 20 0c. The total projected population of the Gemechis district is 235,638 of which 119,485 are males and 116,153 are females [25]. The number of agricultural households in the district is estimated to be 38,500 [24]. Doba district is located at 382 km from east of the capital city, Addis Ababa and 45 km from Chiro, Zonal capital town and shared boundary with Chiro on the south, Mieso on the west, Somalia Region on the north, Misraq Hararghe zone on the east, and Tulo district on the southeast. The district has 33 rural kebeles and three rural towns ((Doba district Agricultural and Rural development offi ce). The district has an altitude ranging from 1400 -2500 m.a.s.l. Agro ecologically, the district has highland (dega) 40%, medium high land (weyna dega) 57% and low land (kola) 3%. The district receives bi-modal average annual rainfall ranging from 550 mm to 800 mm and has daily mean temperature ranging from 18oC to 26oC [26]. The total projected population of the district is 171,458 of which 87,428 are males and 84,030 are females [25]. Among this, 166,181 populations are leaving in rural areas through driving their livelihoods from agriculture and related activities ( Figure 1).

Sampling producers and sample Size determination
Multi stage sampling procedures was employed in order to generate primary data. Firstly, Doba and Gemachis district was selected purposively after the discussion with the zonal livestock and fi shery resource offi ce experts due to their potential (predominant producers) production of beef cattle, market participation and volume of market supply, and their proximity to the main road and local market as compared to other neighbor districts in the Zone. Next, before selecting kabeles, potential kabeles were identifi ed and listed from both districts with help of experts of respective districts. Following this, six kebeles (three from each district) were selected randomly with probability proportional to size of identifi ed kebeles from two districts. Before selecting the respondents, sampling frame of beef cattle producers was taken from selected kebeles offi ce and updated to the current with help of experts of respective kebeles. Finally, the study respondents were selected randomly with probability proportional to size of households in sample kebeles. Sample size for producers for this study were determined using appropriate sample size determination formula provided by [27], at 95% confi dence level, 0.5 degree of variability and 7% level of precision. Hence, the sample size was calculated as: Therefore, considering the resource available and representativeness of this producer's sample, the total sample size of the producer for the study was reduced to 171, and the calculated sample size was distributed proportionally to purposively selected lower administrative kebeles from two districts ( Table 1).

Method of data collection
The major instrument used for primary data collection was semi-structured interview schedule. The questioner was administered by trained enumerators through face-to-face interview with respondents. Questionnaires was pre-tested on similar different area from the study location on randomly selected ten non-sampled respondents to ensure its validity and

Descriptive analysis
Percentages, frequencies, means, standard deviation and inferential statistics (Independent sample t-test and F-test) were used for the analysis of quantitative data. Besides, an index was calculated to provide overall ranking of selection criteria of cattle for fattening purpose and small-scale beef cattle fattening business constraints in the study area by developing rank index formula based on the method used by [28].
Where, Rn = value of the least rank of constraint a (if the least rank is 14 th , then R n = 14, R n-1 = 13, R 1 = 1), C n = counted value of the least ranked level (in the above example, the counts of the 14 th rank=Cn, and C 1 = the count of the 1 st rank), and (R n *C 1 +R n-1 *C 2 ….+R 1 *C n )a-g = *W= weighted summation of each constraints (a, b, c...,g). For the analysis of quantitative data, the study was used STATA version 13 software packages. The result of quantitative data analysis was presented in the form of table and fi gure.
The qualitative data was analyzed by a means of conceptually organizing, categorizing thematically and narration with respect to the current research objectives. This was done immediately after fi rst hand data obtained from respondents.

Socio-economic characteristics of small-scale beef cattle producers
The data revealed that high percentage of respondents, involved in cattle fattening activities in the study areas were male headed (87.4%) when compare to female's (12.6%) ( Table  2). This is may be due to the nature of the cattle fattening activities, it needs intensive energy for proper management and handling of cattle such as watering, feeding, feed collection/ purchasing, cattle purchasing for fattening purpose and selling activities. Generally, female participation on cattle fattening business as owner was less as compared to male counterpart which may be due to high burden of females on household chores and non-farm economic activities.  Table 2).
The survey result shows that, about 25.15% of smallscale cattle fatteners had access to credit services from formal fi nancial institutions, money lenders and relatives or friends in the survey year. Information from formal interview shows that, among the reasons that many had no access to credit was lack of collaterals for enabling them to secure loans, lack of information on how to secure loans and complicated procedures to get loans in the study areas. These at times have left the gap between cattle fatteners and fi nancial institution, which are supposed to work together so as to uplift the cattle fattening industry. Besides, the result indicated that, cattle fatteners who have access to animal health service accounts (47.95%), which is smaller than those who have no access (52.05%). The independent t-test result indicated that there is a signifi cant mean difference at less than 1% probability level between those who have access to extension service, animal health service, market information, and credit service and not, respectively in terms of quantity of beef cattle they produced last three years including the survey year ( Table 2).
The study result revealed that, 56.14% of beef cattle producers had access to market information. Large percentage of respondents reported to depend on actual market day information/through personal observation, market information test result also indicated the signifi cant mean difference at less than 5% probability level between cattle fatteners regarding frequency of extension contact ( Table 5).
The study result indicated that, cattle fatteners had on average 9.44 years of experience with the minimum and maximum experience of 1 and 20 years, respectively (Table 3).
This indicates that the sub-sector is very old as compared to other parts of the country where cattle fattening are practiced.
The F-test result also indicates that experience of cattle fatteners were found to be signifi cant at 1% probability level; indicating the signifi cant differences between categories of producers' year of experience in terms of quantity of beef cattle produced during past three years ( Table 6).     (Figure 2).

Rationale of small-scale cattle fattening business
The current result coincides with the fi nding of [31]. They found that livestock are important source of cash income and play an important role in ensuring food security and alleviating poverty. Furthermore, the result from researcher observation and group discussions indicated that, smallholder farmers participate on cattle fattening business due to limited land size for crop production, high population density on small land size, and recurrent drought in the study areas in particular and zone in general.

Major cattle selection criteria for fattening purpose
Small-scale cattle fattening practice is the type of business where the smallholder farmers engaged on fattening activities alone or along other farming activities. Their main function is fattening the cattle of different age categories through utilizing available feed resources mostly in semi-intensive type of feeding system and then fi nally supplying for sell to the market when the animals conditioned. The sources of cattle for fattening might be from own herd or could be purchased from local market based on different selection criteria's. The survey result shows that, body confi rmation/condition, breed type, frame/width size, cot color (mainly white color) was the primary cattle selection criteria for fattening purpose and ranked as 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd , and 4th, respectively (Table 7). They think that any cattle breeds meet all these criteria perform well on fattening than others. Better preference of young bulls at the age of 3-6 years suggested that animals after grown to these ages are more suitable to fatten and produce high yield and quality beef to the local market and the standard required by the export market niche of Ethiopian. The result is agreed with the fi nding of [32], who reported that the majority of the farmers were preferred matured bull for fattening.
It was reported that body size (frame size) as an individual trait is said to be very important since it is related to potential growth at every stage of the development process (Sintayehu et al., 2010) and affect the whole production system, due to its infl uence on aspects such as the food conversion effi ciency, the time taken to meet a specifi c market fi nishing degree, or the fi nal quality of the product obtained [33]. Besides [32], found that the body frame had signifi cant effect on the liveweight change and gross profi t of fattening cattle. The study also revealed that producers in the area used largely white color young bull for fattening purpose. The current result is consistent with reports in different area of Ethiopia that traders would not prefer to purchase black coated animal at market place due to consumer preference [34,35] (Figure 3). Health, initial price, age/teeth eruption, length/height, adaptation, and horn size, and ranked as 5 th , 6 th , 7 th , 8 th , 9 th , and 10 th , respectively was also another selection criterion of cattle for fattening purpose in the study areas( Table 7). The choice of cattle based on those criteria could be to meet the market demand and fi nishing ability of the animal. The current result is consistent with fatteners in northern part of Ethiopia were   [22,32].

Constraints in small-scale cattle fattening business
The result revealed that, illegal brokers, recurrent drought and feed shortage, water scarcity, feed price increment, weak extension service, lack of initial capital, and informal cattle trade were among the major constraints betrothed smallscale cattle fattening business and ranked as 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd , 4 th , 5 th , 6 th and 7 th , respectively ( Table 8) Likewise, according to [37], crop residue, natural pasture and weed were mentioned as the major feed resource for cattle in the west and east high lands of Hararghe Zone. They argued that, the major problem with feed of these kind were seasonal availability and/or quality of the feed resource which in turn affects cattle fatteners by restricting production to the time of feed availability; so introduction of potential forage production, improvement of the feed resource through different techniques and/or supplementing the animal should be practiced to optimize production. The same source shows that, shrinkage of grazing land, shortage of land and water, low productivity of the local breed, low of improved breed, disease and parasite as the major constraints of beef cattle production among others in West and East high lands of Hararghe zone.
In the same way [38,39], found that inadequate feed supply is one of the major physical constraints hampering market oriented livestock development and to further expansion of the livestock population in Ethiopia in general. According to [40], result from stakeholder discussions revealed that the average price of animal feed increased by 3.2 times over the last 5 years -faster than the rate of increase for prices of food for human consumption, and more quickly than overall infl ation.    Table 8).
The present fi nding is agreed with the result of [39]. They reported that about 58% and 5% of the live animals come from the grassland and mixed systems, respectively, and are exported through informal channels in which informal exports are more than double the formal exports in Ethiopia, which has a very signifi cant impact on the country's economy, in terms of both lost government revenues and high domestic prices ( Figure 4).
federal as well as regional government of Ethiopia was given great emphasis to mixed-agriculture (both crop and livestock production) which includes cattle fattening as one of the source of livelihoods and development structure. This is also the case particularly for the study areas and generally for the west Hararghe zone when the land holding size is much more less than national average due to high population density and geographic futures of the zone. The growth and transformation plan two (GTP II) of the federal government and Oromia Regional state considered also cattle fattening as primary and most focused important activity.
As The result from FGD indicated that, comparatively, there is abundant of feed resources (crop residues) mainly from September to December for beef cattle fattening which creates an opportunity to use their own feeds by reducing the cost of purchasing available other feeds. As they said, the indicated months are the major period to harvest different crop in and around the study areas which is a source of crop residues for beef cattle fattening. This also one indication of beef cattle producers in the study areas where most of them use their own feed resource comes from the farm land.
The current increase in demand for meat due to the increase in number of hotels, and restaurants in and around the study area towns, and emerging middle-class urban dwellers with increasing income and more buying power are among good opportunities the study identifi ed. The study also found that, currently, the study areas town and other towns found in the zone and outside are becomes more urbanized than before and urban dwellers increased the use of animal product, particularly,    [39]. Major markets in the Middle East are also growing in terms of population and income, providing a range of niches for targeting by Ethiopian meat exporters.
There is substantial regional demand for cattle and beef, which Ethiopia could further, exploit the opportunities [40]. Generally, there are potentials of cattle fattening, and geographic location offers substantial opportunities for exportation, thus earning foreign exchange from export of beef cattle and its products, especially of red meat to the Middle East and across African countries.

Conclusions and Recommendations
Cattle fattening business has a signifi cant contribution in national income in general and smallholder farmers income in particular. Generally, West Hararghe Zone is well known cattle fattening areas in the country due to its favorable agro-ecology and high experience/indigenous knowledge on traditional cattle fattening and limited land holding size. Following this, the current study is aimed at analyzing major constraints and opportunities, and cattle selection criteria's for fattening purpose. The study found that cattle fattening industry is constrained with both production and marketing systems. The study found that, the acute constraint in cattle fattening business was illegal brokers. Cattle fattening business sustainability will highly depend on the reduction or elimination of this bottleneck. Hence, the local livestock and fi shery offi ce by cooperating with others stakeholder should augment cattle fatteners bargaining power and balance brokers' interference in the market through launching cattle marketing cooperatives.
Feed shortage and price increment animal feed is also found to be the critical problem which reduced incentives for feeding regimes, and also prolonged the cattle fattening period. Therefore, the local extension system should plan and take action on improving farmers' knowledge through frequent training on how to use the marginal land not suitable for crop production for animal feed production by them is imperative.
Besides, due emphasis should be given to the market place infrastructures where beef cattle are marketed and on how to make illegal traders to be legal and pay the tax for the government. To conclude, the government should design appropriate livestock strategy to optimize the population of livestock used for fattening purpose and replacement livestock at its original area.