Assessment of Agro-Industrial By-Products Production, Utilization and Chemical Composition in the Bale Highlands, South Eastern Ethiopia

Assessment survey was conducted in the highlands of Bale, Southeastern Ethiopia. The recent livestock population data (CSA, 2020/21) shows that Ethiopia has about 70 million heads of cattle, 42.9 million Sheep, 52.5 million goats, 2.15 million horses, 10.80 million donkeys, 0.38million Mules, 8.1 million camels and 57 million poultry .With the objectives to assess agroindustrial by-products production potential and utilization and to evaluate the chemical composition of major agro-industrial by-products and their utilization as livestock feed in the study areas. Single visit multiple subject survey method (ILCA, 1990) to collect data with the use of pretested semi-structured questionnaires. The mean age of urban production system respondents were 48.08years where we the age of peri-urban production system respondents were 49.78 years. Average landholding and grazing land were 1.89±0.6, 0.14±0.08, respectively. Their production capacities were also as follow; Sinana district wheat bran and wheat short 207,325 and 42757 quintals/year respectively, Ginner district were produce wheat bran 45024 quintals/year and wheat short 4872 quintals/year. Goba district were produce wheat bran 17640 and wheat short 2520 quintals/year .Majority of the farmers (81.67 %) offered agro-industrial by-products mainly to milking cows (without considering milk yield, physiology and body condition), 15.83% for draft oxen and 2.50% supplements fatting oxen. Based on the result of the respondents of the sampled households, Shortage of animal feed ranked as the primary constraint of livestock production followed by shortage of adequate quantity and quality of water and health with index value of 0.46, 0.33, and 0.22, respectively. The DM and CP content of WB is significantly (P<0.001) different between Goba and the while Ash, fiber, ADF and Ca were significantly (P<0.001) different between Ginner and the remaining districts. Different small scale linseed oil processing linseed cakes evaluated in this study showed significant (p<0.05) variations in all the measured nutritional parameters. There were high production of wheat bran, wheat short and less amount of linseed cake in the study area so that in high opportunities to establish compound animal feed processing for further packaging animal feeds for different class of animals and poultry in the highland of Bale