The performance of dairy enterprises in peri urban areas. A case study of Lugazi municipality.
Abstract
This study was conducted to assess and evaluate the performance of dairy enterprises in peri-urban
areas using Lugazi municipality as a case study. A total of 60 farmers were selected in three
randomly selected parishes in Lugazi and a snowball sampling procedure was adopted through
which questionnaires were used to collect qualitative and quantitative data. Findings on farmers’
demographics show that majority of farmers are male, amounting to 73.33% and 66.67% had
experience of 6 years and above. Ages of the farmers range from youths of 28 years to middle aged
farmers of 55 and majority falling around 41. O level is the dominant level of education attained
at 31.67%. The socio-economic characteristics of the enterprises show that majority of the farmers
started up their dairy farms as secondary income source as majority rely on salary and small
businesses for income. Result from the study reveal an impressive profitability of 93% and
productivity measured at 67%, this shows that the venture is a lucrative one and only requires
exploitation of the unexploited productivity measured to at 33% below average in cross bred
animals. The average milk output by cows is 10 liters yet it's expected to be 15 liters. The difference
between the two values is the unexploited productivity which needs to be tapped by following
recommendations given in this paper. Significant factors that influence profitability were: level of
experience in years, breed of the animal, sex of the farmer, and group membership. Peri-urban
dairy farming is possibly an effective method to alleviate poverty, ensure food and nutrition
security in built up areas and also facilitate agro industrialization by providing raw materials to
dairy processing industries. Once the untapped productivity is exploited through recommendations
in this paper, the performance of the enterprises can be raised and sustained regardless of the
threats of urbanization to agricultural in built up areas.