Background: Ethiopia has large potential for dairy production development due to the country’s favorable climate which supports use of improved and high yielding animal breeds. There are also huge dairy market problems, which leads to decline dairy production. Therefore, the focus of this study was to analyze the adoption of improved dairy technology and to assess the extent of adoption.
Method: Primary data was gathered from 290 respondents in sample kebeles. It was gathered through semi structured interview schedule and checklists. Tobit and logit econometric model were used to analyze the factors of adoption status of improved dairy technology and its intensity in North Gondar Zone.
Results: The study revealed that 62% (181) of farmers in North Gondar Zone were dairy technology adopters. The logistic regression output indicates improved dairy technology adoption was influenced by local cow (P<0.01), extension services (P<0.05) and dairy cooperative (P<0.1) positively. Whereas the owning of livestock size (P<0.1) and milk production per day (P<0.05) had a negative effect on the above listed technology adoption. On the other side Tobit model result shows the extent of improved breed dairy cow adoption was affected by livestock size (P<0.01), expenditure and training on milk production positively while local cow and dairy cooperatives (P<0.05), had negative effect on it.
Conclusion: In Ethiopia, dairying is a means of providing an additional source of food, income to small and marginal producer and employment. Therefore, monitoring and evaluation on the overall structural functions of the dairy cooperatives on dairy farming is advisable. In addition to that developing milk processors and market linkage is better for adopting improved dairy cows in North Gondar Zone.