dairy farming is a market oriented industry (Give Reason)
Answers
Explanation:
. Introduction
In subsistence agriculture the producer is also the consumer. There is no transport or processing involved and the consumers preference and taste is well known by the very same producer. In "rural economies" more than 50 % of the population is involved directly in farming and the primary production of food and agricultural outputs. In the more expanding and diversifying economies the ratio of consumer to producer increases tremendously. The scenario here is that the employment in the food chain after farm gate is 5- 10 times that in the primary production. This development can be demonstrated with an example from Canada: in 1900, 45 % of Canada's population were employed on farm, whereas in 1990 only 3 % were still directly involved in food production, but now 25 % had found employment in various elements of the food chain. This is the general development seen in most industrialized countries, and it is rapidly under way in the developing countries, with a large variation in the scenarios seen. This change in the food supply system might even be more dramatic in the developing countries than during the industrialization of the now developed countries because of a more rapid urbanisation. The balance is different and so are many of the problems and solutions.
The cities and towns of Africa are growing rapidly (see figure 1), and more rapidly than the rural populations. It is well known that the urban per capita demand for dairy products is higher than rural demand. Predictions for future demand for livestock products are staggering. Winrock (1992) estimate an increased demand from 1990 to 2010 for meat to 120 % and for milk to 70 %. Therefore, the near future will show a growing demand for dairy products and present both a challenge and an opportunity for development of the dairy sector in most developing countries as indicated in figure 2; most -if not all- East African countries have the potential to produce enough milk to satisfy the domestic demand. Many countries have seen a peri-urban sector develop very fast around or in the largest urban centres, responding immediately to the market demand and profiting from the lack of links between the rural producer and the urban consumer. Parallel to this development Tanzania has also seen private entrepreneurs initiate milk collection from Maasai pastoralists living in the vicinity of Dar es Salaam.
The peri-urban farming is not seen as a sustainable farming system but as result of insufficient infra-structure and lack of regulations or control/enforcement of legislation on health, standards and environmental issues. Most European countries have had a similar development. The capital of Denmark, Copenhagen, had in the 1840's a population of dairy cows housed on second or third floor stables in the centre of town in connection to the numerous small scale breweries (Glamann, 1990). The cows were fed on brewers' waste and other waste products available in town. In fact, half of the milk supply to Copenhagen originated from this urban production system. Around the year 1900 these cows all disappeared from the city because of the increasing population, regulations to reduce health risks and environmental hazards and increasing costs of transporting fodder in and waste/manure out of town. Another important reason was that milk was now available from rural farming areas through improved infrastructure, organisation and market orientation of the farming community. More strict regulations and enforcement of sanitary conditions promoted this development.
Figure 1: Growth of urban centres in Sub-Saharan Africa
Figure 2: Milk production and demand in developing countries
Future interventions in the dairy sector should