Dejene Takele and Tamiru Amanu
The overlooked dairy products marketing situation and economic feasibility of product diversification in Borana Zone were crucially designed intending that both were invaluably contributing to economic development by stimulating production. Unlike milk as staple food was dominantly from different livestock species, milk for marketing was from cattle and camel in lowland agro-ecologies and merely from former species in mid-highland. Except during marketing insufficiency that leaded more milk for consumption and further processing into the derivates with longer shelf life, there was direct selling the surplus in lowland but processing than direct consumption or selling in mid-highland agro-ecology. Even though there were less common actors of marketable dairy products the main actors were consumers, collectors and retailers who were employing different mode of transportation with nil facilities to maintain the quality. Unattractiveness of selling price and non sustainability of the outlet were the basic limiting factors in preferring the actors for whom to sell. Significant variation of market price was observed along the agro-ecology and the main seasons within the agro-ecology (P < 0.05) where there was seasonal based negotiation in determining price in both agro-ecology and the recently emerging quality related pricing mechanism in the capital towns of the districts of lowland agroecology. Diversifying milk was economically attractive business in lowland besides managing the seasonal fluctuations of supply and demand for efficient exploitation of market opportunity. However, the financial profitability in mid-highland agro-ecology was apparently unfeasible probably from the bulkiness of utilized fresh milk than elongating the shelf life of surplus product.
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