         ! "##  $  % & ’  () Urban and peri- urban farming systems and utilization of the natural resources in the North Ethiopian Highlands Yitaye Alemayehu Ayenew 1,2 , Maria Wurziger 2 , Azage Tegegne 3 and Werner Zollitsch 2 1 Amhara Regional Agricultural Research Institute (ARARI), Bahir Dar, Ethiopia 2 University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Department of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Division of Livestock Sciences, Vienna, Austria 3 International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI,) Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Key words: livestock, dairy cattle, urban agriculture, peri-urban agriculture Introduction Today urbanisation is advancing at a much more rapid rate than ever. A report of the World Bank (1989) revealed that, by the year 2025 the urban population of sub-Saharan Africa would be growing at 6.9% per annum as compared to 3.1% of the total population of the region. Consequently, in 25 years time about 55% of the region's people will live in towns and cities compared to 30% currently (Winrock International, 1992). This great population pressure in and around cities, coupled with the economic crises throughout the region has led to a tremendous increase in the last decade of total city area under food production. This activity is known as urban and/or peri-urban agriculture. Urban and peri-urban agriculture is practised for a variety of reasons, from commercial reasons to food self-sufficiency to food security. However, the important aspects and limitations of the different farming systems in the urban and peri-urban areas of North western Ethiopia were not yet well studied and documented. Among them, the level of integration, the limitations and the advantages of farming systems seem to be most important. For example the dependency of farmers on animal power for traction (soil seed- bed preparation, trashing and transportation of agricultural and non-agricultural goods) and on livestock manure for fertilizing crop land may pose significant limitations on farming activities in urban and peri-urban areas. Therefore, the objectives of the current project were to asses the level of integration of crop- livestock farming and to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of livestock and crop- livestock farming systems in urban and peri-urban areas of North western Ethiopia. Materials and Methods The study was carried out between July 2006 and March 2007 in two districts of the Amhara region, Ethiopia, Bahir Dar town and Dangla, about 580 and 500 km northwest of Addis Ababa, respectively. Method of Data Collection A total of 54 urban and peri-urban farmers keeping dairy cows were selected from two locations by use of systematic random sampling techniques. Therefore, a total of 54 farmers were interviewed from the main city of the Amhara Region (Bahir Dar) and from the secondary towns