Minfal to facilitate women farmers in dairy sector

To facilitate women farmers in preservation and marketing of dairy products like milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) plans to launch a five-year project in the months ahead.
A source in the ministry told that the PC-1 of the project titled, 'Economic Empowerment of Women Livestock Farmers through Marketing of Dairy Products' had already been approved and is to be launched in District Bhakkar (in Southern Punjab) and Mirpurkhas (in Sindh) soon.
The source said that the Ministry of Women Development envisaged the idea, but the project was later transferred to Minfal on the directives of Planning Commission. "The project will be a joint venture of National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) and the government," he said and added the basic objective was to train as many women as possible on ways to maximise production of dairy items and converting it into a profitable business.
"We will train them on ways to keep their animals and environment healthy in addition to providing them small chillers and milk plants," he added. Terming livestock, a domain of women, he said that it was mainly women who were responsible for taking care of animals. "Men usually work in fields or are settled in cities while the women stay at home," he said adding that it was important to target women who actually dealt with livestock.
The project also aims to connect women to markets so that they could take timely decisions instead of waiting for men. "Women farmers will also be provided refrigerated vans in order to ensure safe delivery of their products to the collection centres."
He said that economic empowerment of women farmers with such skills would lead to financial support to households and in turn increase production of dairy products. "Our country has a great potential for producing dairy products as among 22 percent of GDP coming from agriculture, 11 percent comes from livestock."
The paper work for the project began during the tenure of the last government as part of white revolution. "Instead of investing in establishing big farm houses, it was considered to be a better option to help households in establishing small farming units at homes, as every household has animals," said the source.