Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday approved an 'ambitious' five-year livestock development policy envisaging a more than double increase in the growth rate of the sector from its current level of three percent per annum.
According to the policy, the government will focus on enhancing indigenous meat, milk and wool production through a number of measures to meet 6 to 7 percent target of overall livestock growth rate by 2010.
Federal Food Secretary Mohammad Ismail Qureshi told Business Recorder that the major thrust in the policy was to encourage private sector for playing a lead role in the development of the livestock.
"This is exactly what we (government) want to achieve. We want private sector to lead with the government acting as a catalyst or a regulator," he told this scribe on telephone when approached after the meeting in which the policy was approved.
Qureshi said the government would achieve the growth rate target by focusing on increasing the production of three main produces-meat, milk and wool-backed by some other administrative and technical measures.
For meat, he added, the policy had set a target of taking the growth rate from its current level of 2.7 to 5 percent by 2010.
The actual production of meat would be enhanced from 2.27 to 2.90 million tonnes a year during this period, the food secretary said.
As far as the milk was concerned, Qureshi said, 6 percent growth rate target has been set for 2010 against 3 percent at the moment.
The production of the commodity was for this period projected to be enhanced from a current level of 29 to 40 million tonnes a year.
Similarly, the government had also set target for enhancing the production of wool that accounted for a small portion of the total livestock growth, the secretary added.
Qureshi said the government had already implemented some steps that the policy recommended, including the establishment of an independent board for dairy development.
Meanwhile a statement issued here quoted the Prime Minister as saying the livestock had significant potential for poverty reduction, growth and export if adequate support and incentives in public and private sectors were provided.
Shaukat Aziz was chairing the meeting for reviewing the livestock policy drafted by ministry of food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal), the statement said.
Federal Food Minister Sikandar Bosan and other officials of the ministry and agriculture and livestock secretaries of the provinces were present at the meeting.
The policy would focus on providing safe and quality products at competitive prices, covering entire value chain with focus on marketing and poverty reduction, the statement added.
The Prime Minister said more importance had been given to the availability of credit to the livestock sector.
At least five commercial banks had agreed to provide loans for the development of the livestock sector, he said, adding this was for the first time that commercial banks had been involved in policy formulation. "There is a need to move from subsistence farming to market-oriented and commercial farming," said the Prime Minister.
He said that the share of agriculture in the country's GDP was 23.1 percent and that of livestock 10.8 percent.
Shaukat Aziz emphasised the need for effective implementation of the policy and seamless co-ordination among the federal, provincial and local governments.
"Federal government will act as a catalyst, with provincial and district governments playing a key role in implementation. It will be the private sector that would lead development while public sector providing the enabling environment," he said.
Qureshi in his presentation said that the livestock contributes 8.5 percent to the total exports and 6.5 million families are dependent on it.
The federal government would be responsible for policies, planning and economic co-ordination, import/export of animals, their products and quarantine, research and international co-ordination and price stabilisation, he added.
The food secretary said provincial governments would take steps for livestock development, veterinary vaccine production, disease surveillance and reporting, livestock research, production and health education and milk and meat quality.
He informed the meeting that district governments would look after veterinary health service (preventive and curative), breeding services (artificial insemination), animal slaughtering and livestock markets.
Under the policy, substantial support would be provided to private sector for modernisation of techniques, better marketing, training of workers, establishment of slaughterhouses, Qureshi said.
He said a programme to set up modern dairy farms had already been initiated and plans were being finalised to establish large-scale breeding facilities and slaughterhouses.
Comments
Comments are closed.