To get the most from something by investing least amount of resources is a concept at least as old as industrial revolution and the birth of modern economics. Livestock is no different. But while average milking yield of Australian, Dutch or American cows range between 25 to 40 litres per day, that of Pakistani cows and buffalos is 6-8 litres per day. Without fixing the milking yield of Pakistan’s cattle the quantity of good quality milk will not rise to a level where it can be made affordable to all – a subject discussed late last week (See: Milk pricing problem, May 30, 2019).

There are two broad set of solutions to Pakistan’s low milk yield problem. The quicker way, which is improvements in the provision of food, water, and clean animal husbandry practices. And the long-haul process of improving the breed of the animal itself.

In an interview with BR Research, Sulaiman Monnoo, Senior Vice Chairman of Pakistan Dairy Association, said that milk yield of Pakistani breeds can be improved by 25 percent in less than 6 months by just giving basic education to livestock farmers. These include education and support related to artificial insemination, modern milking methods, feed, animal comfort, etc. “Just by improving the quality and quantity of water that is fed to cattle, average yield could rise by 1 litre.”

The long-term solution lies in breed improvement, where there are three possible options. For big corporate farms there is no option but to import foreign breeds since it does not make business sense for them to have rely on low yield local breeds. The supply of good standardised quality of local breeds that may yield 15-20 litres daily average is so low that to purchase only 500 good local breeds takes a year, whereas they can directly import even 3000 animals whenever they want.

But not everyone is a big corporate farmer, nor does Pakistan’s forex reserves allow adding heaps of cow imports to its annual import bill, whereas small farmers who constitute the bulk of cattle population cannot afford to buy and keep imported cattle. Therefore, using artificial insemination or embryo transfer for cattle is a potential middle of the road solution.

In case of the former farmers get one-sided genetics from a foreign proven bull whose semen is used to artificially impregnate a local breed cow to improve the milking yield of the new heifers. In the case of the latter, both the semen and the egg of high milking yields breeds are used, and the embryo is transferred to local cows acting as surrogate mothers. The former is less costly and less complex than the latter. But while the former brings noticeable results in 7-8 generations on sustainable basis, the latter shows good results in 2-3 generations.

The third option is of course is improving those handful of local breeds through those handful of local bulls, who are registered and proven for their good gene. But this process takes at least 10-15 years to get to a basic level and about 60-70 years to get to the level of dairy specialist countries, who have taken as much time to develop their breeds.

For any of these options to succeed, the role provincial livestock departments is critical, as is inter-governmental coordination for food standards at one end, feed, semen type & quality, etc and their import regulations at the other.

For instance, in the case of breed improvement livestock departments will have to ensure that animal pedigree records are registered, and that insemination only happens through registered bulls or imported/local semen, whatever the case may be. In the case of farmer training for clean practices, good feed and water, the livestock and breeding services departments will have use their machinery to train, educate and monitor the farmers. And these efforts will have to be consistent.

In 1960s when the US started developing its dairy breeds their average milk production per cow was about 2000 litres for 305 days, and they had about 28 million animals. Today, they have reduced their dairy cows to nearly one-third of the 60s, while their dairy production level has increased to 10,000 litres per 305 days. But it has taken 60 years of consistent efforts for them to achieve these results. And here in Pakistan, both yields and the number of cattle has been going down – the latter more so over the last fifteen years, which will be discussed later in this space.

Pegged to all this, however, is the need for deregulation of milk prices, since at current prices farmer has little or no incentive to ensure good feed, water and -clean husbandry practises; nor does she have any incentive for breed improvements. Hopefully good sense will prevail soon.