The International Livestock & Poultry Congress-2005 (IPLC-05) will be held from December 13 to 14 at Lahore for "Prosperity Enhancement through Poultry & Livestock Development" with the co-operation of Smeda.
Iftikhar Hussain Bukhari, secretary congress (Cord) Smeda, said the IPLC-05 will cover establishment of dairy chain, livestock breed improvement, public-private sector partnership, women participation, local and international marketing, role of financial institutions, cost-effective poultry and livestock farming and international co-ordination and technology transfer.
He said about 2,000 delegates from Pakistan and other potential countries are expected participate in IPLC-05.
Iftikhar Hussain Bukhari said the agriculture is the largest sector of the Pak economy, contributing 23 percent to the GDP and involving 42 percent of the total labour force. The livestock is the largest of the various agriculture sub-sectors, adding its net foreign exchange earning in 2003-04 was Rs 53 billion, which is about 11 percent of the overall export earnings of the country.
The livestock accounts for 46.8 percent of agricultural value-added and about 10.8 percent of the GDP, he said, adding that milk is the largest commodity from the livestock sector accounting for 51 percent of the total value of the sector.
Pakistan is the fifth largest producer of milk in the world with a total production of 28 billion liters of milk a year. Its value is more than that of the combined value of wheat and cotton from a total herd size of 27 million milch animals (buffaloes and cows), he added.
According to Smeda policy, there is a consensus among the stakeholders and the development experts that the Pak dairy sector has immense potential for growth. The same has not been realised due to various gaps.
He said the vital missing link being lack of shared vision and strategy for the development and lack of effective collaboration among the stakeholders, including support institutions and the government agencies to implement the agreed strategy.