<<Back

Livestock

Thirty to thirty-five million rural people are involved in raising livestock. Livestock accounts for 46.8 percent of agricultural value-added and about 10.8 percent of the GDP.  Households typically have holdings of 2-3 cattle/buffalo and 5-6 sheep/goat per family, which helps them to derive 30-40 percent of their income. Pakistan is the fifth largest milk producing country in the world, and it is estimated that the country produces 36.6 billion liters of milk a year, the value of which is more than that of the combined value of wheat and cotton.
 
Government gives high priority to livestock development through encouraging private sector involvement. The Government of Pakistan has formulated an independent Livestock Development Policy, providing a framework for accelerated development of livestock. This policy not only addresses the need of small livestock farmers for whom livestock is a supplementary income source but also includes measures to develop small and medium livestock enterprises and an incentive framework for setting up large livestock farms.  The State Bank of Pakistan has issued guidelines for livestock financing to facilitate commercial banks and financial institutions for extending credit to livestock sector. Micro credit schemes for small livestock farmers through commercial banks have started. Large financial groups are now taking an interest in establishing turnkey and vertically integrated dairy projects. 

In FY 07, ASA-IM focused on the promotion of soy usage in this sector by providing technical assistance to major feed manufacturers to start making pelleted dairy feed. Several seminars, workshops and one-on-one consultations were organized with local and dairy consultants from India.  Two poultry feed millers have started manufacturing pelleted dairy feeds, using soybean meal in their formulations, and a few farmers in Karachi – one having Asia’s largest cattle colony of 300,000 heads – have started using SBM in place of mycotoxin-contaminated cotton cake and bakery waste.  The response is creating general confidence among stakeholders about the quality of soy protein.  Marketing of U.S. hi-pro SBM continued with supported from USSEC members like Brushvale Seed, Minnesota and Wayne Knewtson, North Dakota.  However, these efforts did not result in sales, primarily due to high freight costs. 

In order to increase demand for the soybean complex in animal feeds at technical feed technology tour was arranged for five leading Pakistani farmers and feed millers, including representatives from the Karachi Dairy Farmers’ Association (KDFA) and the Peshawar Dairy Farmers’ Association (PDFA), traveled to India to gain firsthand knowledge about new feeding technologies and the utilization of soy in dairy ration. Site visits included a) a block feed manufacturing facility (Bheli) in Karnal, b) a block feed machinery manufacturing site in Delhi, c) an extruder manufacturing unit in Delhi,  and d) Warna Cooperative Milk in Kolhapur, a vertically integrated model cooperative.  Upon return, all the participants started using SBM in their formulations, and also have promoted the benefits of using soybean among other stakeholders.