Heavy rains that have been continuing for last eight days in Sindh, sent red-alert for the livestock sector as well as the poultry industry. Informed sources told Business Recorder that more than 0.1 million heads of livestock have been killed or washed way due to heavy rains sending bad signals to the farmers of interior Sindh.
The Super Floods of last year had also washed away more than 0.1 million heads of livestock and this fresh onslaught has also disturbed the farmers profoundly, sources said. Rains hit almost all the districts of Sindh, but 10 districts were highly affected that are Badin, Mirpurkhas, Thatta, Hyderabad, Sanghar, Dadu, Larkana, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Tharparkar, Umerkot and Kashmore-Kandhkot. Millions of people associated with livestock and poultry business have suffered huge losses, sources said.
An official of Sindh Livestock Department told Business Recorder that livestock is considered a more secure source of income for small farmers and landless poor in the interior Sindh. It has also become an important source of employment in rural areas, he added.
He said large number of buffaloes and cows have died in Badin, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas while sheep and goats have been washed away in Tharparkar and Umerkot districts. He said livestock accounted for approximately 55.1 percent of the agriculture value addition and 11.5 percent to GDP in 2010/11. He said livestock sector's prospective role towards the rural economic development may well be recognised from the fact that more than 60 percent rural population is dependent on livestock and poultry sectors.
He said poultry sector generates employment and income for about 2 million people. Its contribution to agriculture value addition ie 4.8 percent and livestock value addition 9.8 percent. He further said that poultry meat contributes 24.8 percent of total meat production in the country.
Poultry farms have also suffered loss of millions of rupees along with fish farms, which have been cleaned away, he added. It has also been observed that with heavy losses to poultry sector, the price of chicken meat has shot up and will further increase in coming days. The heavy loss to livestock sector would affect the sale on Eid-ul-Azha and rates of livestock would shoot up further as compared last year.