Ararsa Gutema Kula
The objective of this review paper is to indicate unexploited recourse and different breeds, opportunities, and constraints of goat production and trend of consuming goat milk and goat milk products in some parts of Ethiopian regions that is potentially unexploited for local and foreign investors to engaging in goat milk production though breed improvement in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has huge population of goat in Africa with diversity of breeds and distributed in different agro ecology of the country. Goats have the ability to survive in different agro-ecologies that makes goat with unique characteristics. The breeds of goats in Ethiopia is poor productive of meat and milk due to several factors. Despite of their low productive, goat has many socio-cultural, socio-economic and national benefits. Although goat milk drinking has nutritional and medicinal benefits, goat milk and milk products consuming is affected due to different factors in Ethiopia. Shortage of feed and water, prevalence of disease, poor management, lack of breeds improvement and shortage of improved dairy goat, lack of productivity recording and socio-cultural image to consume goat milk, lack of community awareness to ward drinking goat milk and low productivity of indigenous goat are among the constraints of goat milk production and milk consuming in Ethiopia. The diversity of local goat breed in Ethiopia, availability of communal grazing land, intervention of government and NGO, as well as nutritional and medicinal values of goat milk drinking is the opportunities of production.