Assessment of Farmers Perception towards Production and Utilization of Improved Forages for Dairy Cattle Feeding in the central highlands of Ethiopia

This study was conducted to assess farmers’ perception, production and utilization of improved forage (IF) under rural and peri-urban production systems of Adea-berga and Ejere districts of West Shewa and Welmera district of Oromia special Zone, central highlands of Ethiopia. A questionnaire based survey was conducted on 105 households (47 rural, 58 peri-urban) identified by purposive random sampling method. Fifteen non-users were also included to assess factors hindering IF utilization. The known commonly grown IF includes; oats, elephant grass, and vetch as reported by 95, 85 and 67% of the respondents, respectively. About 92% of the respondents produce their own IF while others either purchase or purchase and produce. About 91 % of respondents have medium and high level of perception score. Illiterateness and land holding significantly (p
East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Vol. 2 No. 1 (2018): East African Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences