Livestock Marketing through Cooperative Initiative in Ethiopia: Theoretical & Empirical: A Review

Abstract

This review highlights how livestock cooperative marketing can enhance market performance in Ethiopia’s leather and leather product industry (ELLPI). Livestock supplies vital raw materials for leather production, making it critical to address bottlenecks in its marketing. Drawing on both published and unpublished sources, the review synthesizes systematic, technical, economic, social, and environmental data from various secondary materials and organizational reports. Despite holding Africa’s largest livestock population with 65.35 million cattle, 51 million goats, 40 million sheep, 8.6 million equines, 1 million camels, and 55.4 million chickens only 3.7 million cattle hides, 8.4 million sheep skins, and 7.7 million goat skins are collected annually. In addition to, the Oromia and Amahara regional states are leading with 43 and 25 percentages to total respectively, and considering that cattle play a significant role in the economic life of rural community of Ethiopia. Consequently, the untapped potential for skins and hides remains considerable. Livestock cooperative marketing emerges as a strategic solution, involving collective action by producers, consumers, governments, and communities to harness shared resources. This approach can tackle core challenges undermining Ethiopia’s export competitiveness: limited market-oriented production, fragmented coordination, weak market information, and inadequate facilities. Countries like Botswana, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Kenya have set an example in effective livestock marketing structures in East Africa regional market.. Empirical evidence indicates that cooperative marketing can significantly improve efficiency, sustainability, equity, and user satisfaction. It is also culturally and socially more accepted in Ethiopia compared to alternative organizational models. Therefore, adopting an integrated, cooperative framework for livestock marketing could optimize the country’s vast livestock resources, fostering greater domestic and export market performance in the ELLPI.