This review is conducted to assess the Opportunities and Challenges of Dairy cattle production in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia the dairy industry plays an enormous role in ensuring food security and creating rural employment in the highland and lowland areas. In Ethiopia, dairying is experienced throughout the country by a large number of rural and urban producers. Indigenous breeds of cows are generally considered as low milk producers. However, they are the major source of milk in Ethiopia that accounts for 97% of the total milk production in the country. The average milk production from indigenous cows is 1.85 litters/head per day and ranged from 1.24litter in the rural lowland areas to 2.31 liter in the rural highland areas. There are ample opportunities for dairy development which includes large state of range land, huge livestock population, diverse cattle genetic resources, existence of different agro-ecologies suitable for milk production, rapid increase human population and urbanization. Despite of the opportunities existed for dairy development in the country there are also technical and non technical constraints which hinders the dairy development so far in the country. These constraints include inadequate feed and water, poor health service, poor housing system unplanned breeding system, inadequate extension service, poor genetic resource, fragile linkages between extension service providers and milk producers as well as inadequate infrastructure are some of the problems for dairy production in Ethiopia. Hence besides the opportunities existed there should be also strong institutional support for dairy producers and cooperatives, and improving access to services like credit facilities, road and market infrastructure, land, water, feed, health, extensive AI service etc must receive appropriate awareness in order to advance milk production in the country.

Keywords: Milk production, Opportunity, Challenge, Ethiopia