The government of Pakistan is committed to developing and promoting livestock sector on modern lines to meet local and global Halal meat demand. This was stated by Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Sahibzada Muhammad Mehboob Sultan as a chief guest while addressing "National Workshop on Sustainable Prevention of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD)" here on Wednesday.
The workshop was organised by USAID under US-Pakistan partnership programme for Agricultural Market Development (AMD) aimed at bringing concerned stakeholders and beneficiaries together to share recent development in FMD control in Pakistan and way forward for sustainable prevention for enhanced meat trade in high demand market.
The minister said Pakistan has a huge potential for livestock production and processing with national herd comprises an estimated population of 190 million large and small ruminants and 87 million rural and one billion commercial poultry.
He said that the Agriculture Market Development is supporting Pakistan's commercial agriculture through improving the ability of sector to meet both international and domestic demand in fruits, off-season vegetables and meat.
The minister said that the enormity of large livestock resource base makes Pakistan amongst the first ten nations in the world in respect of many livestock commodities and species; however, diseases causing economic losses are one of the few stumbling blocks in Pakistani rural socioeconomic development.
The minister said that the present government has placed livestock on its national development agenda. This sector is being focused as a tool for economic growth and rural development.
Sultan said that the government of Pakistan is seriously engaged in prevention and control of FMD through its own resources and technical assistance from its development partners.
He said that based on successful demonstration of development of technical framework for control of FMD, Pakistan moved to stage two of global progressive control pathway (PCP) in 2015. He said that Pakistan in 2018 has launched National FMD Control Programme titled "Risk Based Control of Foot and Mouth Disease in Pakistan 2018-2024" at a cost $6.598 million.
The programme aims at improving food security and will increase the resilience livelihood of livestock farmers to animal disease threats. This programme is countrywide and is expected to move Pakistan's FMD control efforts from stage two to stage three.
Director/ EGA USAID Pakistan, Jeff Geoble said that Pakistan is agro economy and livestock sector comprises 58% of agro sector and it produces 5% of Halal meat of the world. Through consecutive efforts and FMD control Pakistan could contribute immensely to the world's Halal meat needs which is $600 billion worth.
The workshop was informed that livestock sector is the largest sub-sector of agriculture in Pakistan which plays a vital role in the economy. Despite the enormity of animal number, animal health and production are compromised due to presence of FMD, which is a highly contagious viral disease of animals and biggest trade barrier for animals and animal products. The animal losses run into billion of rupees annually apart from stocks unable to compete in the export market.
Pakistan's meat exports are currently limited to Gulf countries and in order to expand into other markets like China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Russia, Pakistan needs to have an OIE endorsed FMD control programme and FMD free zone compartments. This endorsement will expand Pakistan's meat export market to number of countries along with new markets.
The event was attended by the representatives of the development partners, provincial governments and national meat production and processing companies, and lead technical experts to deliberate and put forth a way forward on control and prevention of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Pakistan, leading to enhanced export of meat.
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