The present study found that, lack of improved dairy genotypes was reported as the fourth important challenge of dairy production.The low production and reproductive performance of local dairy cows was mainly due to their low genetic potential.Lack of access to artificial insemination services, high prices of improved cows and heifers, and lack of capital were mentioned as the main limiting factors for the lack of improved dairy cows.Therefore, breeding programs which enable dairy farmers to crossbreed their indigenous cows with improved dairy breeds either through natural or AI services should be provided by the government and non-governmental organization.Alternatively, the government or NGO should supply farmers with crossbred genotypes with affordable prices to increase productivity together with improved feeding technologies.Lack of access to credit services was ranked as the 5th most serious problem to dairy production.It was reported that, lack of credit to allow farmers for investing in technological changes is a major constraint to intensification among smallholder dairy farmers.Use of formal credit was a major constraint due to lack of securities as most of the dairy farmers are resource poor.Generally, investment in improved inputs was found to be very low, except farmers who kept crossbred dairy animals.The locally available financial institutions such as state owned commercial banks, micro-finance institutes, and private banks provide credits to commercial businesses, and smallholder farmers lack access to credit services from these financial institutions due to lack of collateral security.Moreover, the farmers feared the high interest rate and short repayment period to borrow from bank.This discouraged farmers to borrow money from banks.Therefore, there is a need from the government to encourage financial institutions to provide access to affordable credit services and long-term repayment to help farmers invest in improved dairying inputs to improve productivity of their dairy animals and household nutrition and food security.

Another major constraint identified by respondents was low productivity of dairy cows.This was associated with lack of improved dairy breeds, which was again attributed to their high prices,hydroponic nft lack of or inefficient AI services and shortage of quality feeds, among others.Non-remunerative prices of milk and lack of preservative facilities especially during the long Orthodox Christians fasting periods and higher milk yields in the rainy season were reported as the main constraints for low milk prices.This result supports that of Debrah and Birhan , who reported the low milk prices and demand of milk was attributed to the long fasting season, whereby the Ethiopian Orthodox followers abstain from consuming milk for more than 150 days/year.Respondents reported that they are unhappy with the prices they were getting for milk during long fasting periods.Therefore, to overcome the low demand and fluctuations of milk prices, especially during the long fasting periods, value addition to milk in form of butter and cheese could make a better market for milk after fasting periods or for home consumption.Moreover, the farmers should be encouraged to establish dairy cooperative or milk collection center in order to have access to formal marketing and strong bargaining power in setting fair prices for their products, as well as to obtain improved inputs such as supplementary feeds, AI, credit, veterinary services and drugs at affordable prices through their cooperative.Shortage of water in the dry season was another constraint identified by farmers in the study area.Support from government and nongovernmental organization for water development such as well water and improving municipality water supply are suggested to mitigate shortage of cattle drinking water in the dry season.According to the respondents, the major causes of feed shortage were lack of land, shrinkage of communal grazing lands, severe scarcity of feed in the dry season, expansion of towns encroaching nearby grazing lands, high prices and unavailability of commercial feeds, lack of forage production, inadequate knowledge on how best use locally available feed resources, and lack of access to credit and capital problems.Hence, there is a need for introduction of alternative feeding system, such as efficient use of locally available feed resources, feed conservation, treatment of crop residues, adoption of Urea Molasses-Mineral-Blocks, concentrate supplementation to lactating cows when affordable, and on farm feed formulation from local feeds as substitute to costly commercial concentrates are suggested to alleviate the causes feed scarcity and ensure all year round feed availability, especially for lactating cows.

As indicated in Table 9, farmers’ revealed that high prevalence of endemic infectious and parasitic diseases, lack of routine vaccination, inadequate veterinary services, lack of proper disease prevention skills, transmission of diseases during communal grazing and high cost of treatment as factors associated with animal health problems.Therefore, training farmers’ and provision of adequate health care extension services on diseases control and best health practices, adequate veterinary services and drug supply, routine vaccination for the most common infectious diseases are suggested.The results presented in Table 9 revealed that lack and/or inefficient AI services, low conception to AI, high cost and unavailability of crossbred cows, more vulnerability of improved breeds to diseases, high management and feed scarcity were reported to be the critical factors for non-adoption of crossbred/improved cows.The study suggests improved access to AI, access to long term and low interest rate credit services for purchasing improved animals, and improving the efficiency of AI technicians to reduce the problem of low conception rate are areas that need to be highlighted for alleviation of the problem.The results of the current study indicated that lack of specific financial systems and policy support in relation to credit services, unavailability of rules for dairy animals to be used as collateral security for borrowing from financial institutes, and fear of the short-term repayment and high interest rate that discourage farmers from borrowing are the main influencing factors for access to credit services.For majority of the respondents it was impossible to buy crossbred cows due to critical limitation of capital.Thus, the government should encourage the local government controlled micro-finance institutes to provide long term and low interest rate credit services that fits the dairy farmers to acquire improved inputs and technologies that improve milk production and their income.Low milk price was also considered another challenge to dairy production.The possible influences reported by farmers were poor genetic merit of local cows, lack of crossbred animals, feed scarcity and lack of supplementation, diseases , and poor management practices.Therefore appropriate measure need to be taken to improve access to efficient AI services for crossbreeding the local breed along with improved husbandry practices in order to increase milk production and farmers income.As indicated in Table 9, the low prices of milk was reported to be associated with seasonal fluctuations in demand especially during the long fasting periods of Orthodox Christians, lack of milk collection center and dairy cooperative, and unavailability of appropriate milk processing technologies to add values to milk to increase its shelf-life during fasting periods, and lack of milk price policy based on the cost of production.

In Ethiopia, Orthodox Christians fast for more than 150 days per year.The long fasting periods are 55 days before Easter and 30 days before Christmas.Farmers sell their milk at farm gate to individual consumers or retailers with low and price fluctuations, due to lack of milk collection center and dairy cooperative, which have major influence on dairy farmer profitability.Therefore, dairy farmers should be encouraged to form dairy cooperative to develop formal milk value chain which function ethically and improve their bargaining power in terms of deciding fair prices and reduce price flactuations and income loss to them and off course for the benefits of milk users.At Agaro town, the existing dairy cooperative was not active and need to be strengthened by providing necessary technical and institutional support.The results of the current study further revealed that the labour shortage as constraint was reported to be associated with high cost of labour and its unavailability.Due to this most respondents relied on family labour for dairy management activities.The result showed that dry season hydroponic channel, shortage of municipality water supply during the dry season and labour shortage for feed and water collection for zero-grazed crossbred animals were reported to be the main associated factors for water shortage during the dry season.In this study, surveyed farmers practiced different coping strategies in response to the challenges they faced aimed at reducing the effects of these constraints to optimize productivity and sustainability of dairy production.Generally, farmers’ perceived effect of the identified challenges on dairy animals was poor productive and reproductive performance, whereas the impacts on farmers were reduced income, food insecurity, and increasing the vulnerability in their livelihoods.Respondents’ suggested supports needed from dairy development stakeholders and government to overcome the identified constraints for sustainability of their dairy farming is presented in Table 9.Generally, the supports needed by the respondents to alleviate the identified constraints to dairy production included breeding, economic, feed and nutrition, genetics, health, and marketing interventions.

The impact of climate change and climate variability on agricultural livelihoods in resource-dependent societies has led to numerous national and international initiatives that aim to improve decision-making through the application of weather/climate information services.This reflects the urgency of adapting to global climate change as highlighted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report: Global warming at 1.5 degrees and the need for concerted and aggressive measures to ensure weather information services work at all levels of society.WIS involves the generation, provision, and contextualisation of information and knowledge about the condition of the atmosphere at a given place for up to about 14 days for decision-making at all levels of society, thus making it a sub-type of climate information service.Climate information service is a means through which vulnerability to climate change and climate variability might be reduced and improve the resilience of livelihoods.Although most studies indicate that the use of, and interest in, weather/climate information services have increased over the last decade, every empirical research continues to show that information is not used to its full potential.Overall, the empirical literature on weather and climate information services has revealed usability gaps influenced by many factors.Consequently, the World Meteorological Organization launched the Global Framework for Climate Services in 2012 to provide and facilitate access to weather and climate information services.Hence, the forecast information meets users’ varied requirements through observations and monitoring, research, modelling, prediction, capacity building, and the creation of user interface platforms.The information usability gap, a function of both how weather/climate information services are produced and how they are needed and applied by users in different decision-making contexts, is also narrowed.These, indeed, have resulted in an explosion in research on the use of WIS across regions in different sectors, including farming.In Ghana, climate change through global warming causes consequent variability in weather conditions in the form of increasing dry spell length and frequency, early or late rainfall onsets, and reduction in rainfall amount.The effects of climate change have a negative toll on agricultural production, the mainstay of most of the population.Since food crop production is primarily rainfed, the sector is vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.In this context, weather/climate information services support farmers’ adaptive decision-making under uncertain conditions.In Ghana, the weather/climate information service was provided only by the Ghana Meteorological Agency, the sole public organisation responsible for producing and disseminating forecast information.In recent times, business organisation and international NGOs are also providing forecast information.The provision of forecast information for farming includes seasonal onset, weekly and daily rainfall, and temperature conditions.The information is delivered mainly through radios, mobile text messages, workshops, TV, mobile phone, information centre, newspaper, community leaders, and social media.Yet, in most farming communities, the radio is the key medium for receiving weather/climate information because it is relatively cheaper and used without electricity supply.Smallholder farmers also often depend on their local knowledge by using various indicators like the appearance of a flowering plant to determine the pattern of rainfall.Farmers apply the information for land preparations, crop variety selection, changing cropping patterns, applying fertilizer, planning planting time, and managing crop risks.Even so, the uptake of forecast information for decision-making in farming is affected by multiple social-economic and cultural barriers.These include inadequate information on seasonal forecast, high levels of illiteracy, the lack of communication of information in the local language, and non-integration of farmers’ local knowledge into the production of forecast information.