VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS OF DAIRY MILK PRODUCTION AND MARKETING: A FARM LEVEL STUDY IN DHAKA DISTRICT

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to determine the socio economic characteristics of dairy farmers and value chain actors, to identify existing and efficient value chain, to measure production, relative profitability and value addition, to estimate productivity and resource use efficiency of dairy milk production and marketing. For achieving these objectives, 50 respondents were selected randomly and purposively from Mohammad purthana and Dhamrai thana of Dhaka district. The sample included 30 milk producers and 20 value chain actors. Both primary data and secondary data were used in the study. Both tabular and econometric techniques were used to find out the results. Costs, returns, profitability, value addition were calculated separately through tabular analysis. The result of the analysis showed that the total cost per day per cow was estimated at Tk. 378.89 and net return was calculated Tk. 30.86 for a dairy farm. The value addition for per liter of milk produced in dairy farmers, Faria, Bepari, sweetmeat shopper was calculated at Tk.28.06, Tk. 1.63, Tk.2.53, and Tk.40.01. The benefit cost ratio of dairy farming was 1.80. Findings of the study clearly indicated that dairy farming was a profitable enterprise. Cobb-Douglas production function was used to estimate the contribution of key variables of the production of dairy milk. The functional analysis indicated that most of the selected variables had significant impact on the production of dairy milk. This study also identified problems faced by dairy farmers such as lack of credit, high labor cost, disease problem and inadequate veterinary care, lack of sufficient electricity facility, expensive and inadequate feed supply, lack of grazing land and green grass, lack of adequate extension services and technical knowledge, shortage of capital, low quality feed, preservation problem, lack of milk processing center, and high packaging cost. Ensuring easy access of institutional credit,improve owner-labor relationship and veterinary service, supply of high quality feed at subsidized price, allocation of khas lands for producing fodder/grass, steady supply of electricity, ensuring technical knowledge and extension service, and establishment of milk processing center were suggested to solve the problems. The study also identified some major problems of other value chain actors and probable solution to those problems. Finally, some recommendations were made for policy implication.