ABSTRACT
In Ethiopian traditional dairying, milk is a subsistence commodity and dairy is a woman`s business. Women manage cows, milk and process milk into cheese and butter for household consumption as well as for sale in the local market. The dairy income generated from the local market is fully controlled and spent by the women. With improved dairy technology adoption and milk market integration, milk has shifted from subsistence to cash commodity and dairy shifted from labor-intensive to capital-intensive business. Existing evidence indicate that cash commodities and capital-intensive businesses has a defeminizing effect. This paper examines how dairy technology adoption affects men`s and men`s daily time allocation and their daily dairy income share in Ethiopia. The study is based on survey data collected from 296 dairy farm households in Salale area and key informant interviews. The major analytical approach is comparison of smallholder dairy farmers that relies on traditional dairy cow breeds with those who adopted the improved dairy breed and fodder technologies. The finding of the study confirms that dairy technology upgrading has defeminizing effect, especially on dairy income share. While women are the bearer of the additional workload associated with dairy technology adoption, the larger share of the milk income in technology adopting households goes to the men, contrary to the milk income control structure in traditional dairying –where it largely goes to the women. The finding of this study suggests that improving women`s access to productive resources and technology information, strengthening women`s participation in the formal milk market, and ensuring their control over the dairy income and introducing technologies that can reduce their workload can lessen the defeminizing effect of dairy technology adoption in Ethiopia.
