Livestock and Dairy Development Board (LDDB) is planning to launch a comprehensive project in Cholistan for enhancing the milk production by extending help to the farmers of the areas. Well-placed sources in the LDDB told Business Recorder here on Thursday.
According to the sources there were 500,000 cows and around 80,000 camels in Cholistan but their potential of increasing milk had yet not been exploited. They said that representatives of LDDB would soon visit the area to study the problems being faced by the farmers in this area.
They said that these animals were not domesticated in those areas rather they keep wandering whole day and cover 8 to 10 kilometres a days. These cows give four litre milk per day while some people have brought the specie in some areas of the province and domesticated them rather working on increasing milk production.
Moreover, the sources said that the LDDB would try to develop such an infrastructure where these cows and other animals are domesticated where they would be given special feed, treatment and other facilities. One such infrastructure would be developed on model basis first, the sources added.
Meanwhile, according to a press release issued by the Board the Board would set up 140 milk cooling plants in the Punjab province so as to increase the milk production and assuring good return to the dairy farmers. Deputy Project Coordinator of the Board, Dr Naveed Niazi while addressing a meeting of the farmers at Kasur said that the Board had till date installed 34 such milk cooling plants and spent Rs 20 million in this.
These milk cooling plants had been provided free of cost to the farmers of a specific area. The Board had also constituted 51 farmers groups, which could use these plants collectively and ensure provision of milk to the consumers with better quality.
However, Dr Naveed Niazi stated that use of this technology had resulted in better return to farmers and on average dairy farmers had started getting four to five rupees per liter more.
These plants had been installed in Kasur, Mandi Bahauddin and Noshehra Virkan and soon the project would be initiated in Southern Punjab. Dr Niazi said that the Board was also providing feed, medicine and other facilities to the dairy farmers to improve the quality and production of milk.
Comments
Comments are closed.