Farmers have expressed serious concern over sale of adulterated dairy products in open market, and urged the government to devise effective mechanism for ensuring proper checking of contaminated dairy-milk supplied from Punjab to parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Speaking at oath taking ceremony of Livestock Farmers Association at Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday Dr Ghufranullah Akhunzada said that local farmers wanted to develop livestock in parts of KP but they were lacking facilities and demanded of government to facilitate them.
Pinpointing some problems, he said quality fodder, animals species and medical facilities were not available to the farmers and thus they faced lot of financial losses in case of any fatal disease. He asked for strong coordination between government and farmers to resolve the issues timely and take prompt steps for strengthening of livestock farming in the province.
Ahmed Kamal, another farmer from Mardan criticized the successive governments for not taking serous steps to support local farmers. He said the rulers were least bothered to take notice of the supply of contaminated milk and other dairy products from Punjab which was extremely dangerous for health of the consumers. He claimed that at least 17 chemicals were used in the dairy-milk to preserve it for many days while transporting from Punjab to different cities of KP, saying that locally produced milk was costly but its quality was good.
Pointing out sale of fake medicines, vaccines in the market, he said farmers had to spend a lot of money on animals' treatment and despite that the animals could hardly survive due to the spurious medicines. Criticizing district administration, he said the officials of relevant departments focused to fix the prices of dairy products but they were least bothered to fix the rates of fish, meat and poultry and gave free hand to those dealing in these trades.
Besides, he also asked for provision of quality fodder, fertilizer, seeds to the farmers so that they could strengthen their business. Another farmer Ihsan-ul-Haq Bamkhelvi came hard on the government for not paying attention towards capacity building of the farmers, provision of vaccines and feeds. He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had wasted four years and did not take any concrete step for support of livestock farmers.
"We are paying various taxes but the government is giving no return. The ministers are spending huge funds in their constituencies to secure their vote bank and have no interest to support people in other areas," he alleged.
Syed Sardar Badshah asked farmers to focus on livestock farming to avoid health problems. About the sale of contaminated dairy products, he said self accountability was the only solution of the issue otherwise the problems would increase for citizens.
Earlier, Mohibullah Khan, special assistant to chief minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on livestock as chief guest administered oath to the newly elected office bearers of the farmers association. He said 75 percent people of the province were dependent on farming and thus government was determined to support farmers. He asked farmers to keep liaison with livestock department in order to timely resolve the problems.