KARACHI, June 29: Decades of official neglect and unsustainable practices have greatly harmed dairy farms, which has led to rising meat and milk prices. A glaring example is Landhi’s Cattle Colony, where approximately 400,000 animals constitute the city’s prime source of milk. According to unofficial estimates, over 2,000 mature animals — most of them dry but nevertheless of productive age — and up to 500 calves are slaughtered daily.
The reason is simply that since the colony was established in 1958, there has been no government investment in the breeding, feeding and management of livestock. Matters are not helped by the rising costs of fodder.
Located in Bin Qasim town, Cattle Colony is believed to generate five million litres of milk a day and supports the livelihoods of about 50,000 families.
The animals — 97 per cent buffaloes and three per cent cows — are housed in some 2,000 farms in Cattle Colony while about 300,000 animals are scattered in farms along the Super Highway, in Gadap, New Karachi, Korangi, Orangi, Malir and Balidia towns, as well as in Mauripur and Manghopir.
Most of the best cattle breeds come from the Punjab (70 per cent) and the remainder from the interior of Sindh. Together, these establishments are estimated to provide 60 per cent of Karachi’s milk demand.
A startlingly large number of animals is sold to slaughterhouses as soon as they stop lactating since it is not financially viable for small-scale farmers to maintain them during the dry period, or send them into villages to recuperate. Their calves suffer the same fate, since farmers do not have the resources to rear them.
‘Indiscriminate slaughter’
Dairy farmer Jamil Memon told Dawn that “the productive life of a buffalo is ten years but farmers are forced to sell their animal, often after its first lactation, when it is hardly three years old. A decade ago, some trains had reserved bogies to take the animals into villages where they regained strength and became productive again, but the service was suspended a long time ago.”
The chairman of the Livestock Department of the Faisalabad Agriculture University, Dr Mohammad Younas, pointed out the consequences. “The indiscriminate slaughter is rapidly stripping the country, particularly the Punjab, of quality milk-producing animals,” he said.
“Merchants from Cattle Colony buy top breeds from the Punjab and soon slaughter them, leading to rapidly falling numbers of milching [milk producing] animals. One of the victims is the Sahiwal cow, the best milch breed in the country, which is now an endangered species. Pure breed animals of this variety can now be found only at a few private farms.”
Dr Younas’s views are endorsed by Dr Rafiquddin Babar of the Dairy Farmers’ Association (DFA), Karachi. “Eighty-five to 90 per cent of Cattle Colony’s dry animals are slaughtered,” he confirmed. “Internationally, separate farms cater to the milk and meat industries and male animals are raised for meat while females for milk, but Pakistan has not grasped this concept yet.”
Falling numbers
The numbers of pure-breed milching animals are declining also because of the countrywide slaughter of male animals on the erroneous grounds that they are not economically viable.
According to Mehmood Nawaz Ali Shah, general-secretary of the Sindh Abadgar Board, there is now a severe shortage of the Red Sindhi cow, and Nili-Ravi and Kundi buffaloes which are valuable milk producers.
Livestock experts point out the rearing calves for just six months would eventually reduce the number of animals slaughtered for their meat. Iqbal Qureshi, president of the Meat Merchants’ Association, deplored the lack of support provided to farmers and commented that, “a calf needs its mother’s milk for hardly two months but cash-strapped farmers find it difficult to rear it. And meanwhile, the law and order situation discourages people from setting up farms in the interior of Sindh.”
The failure to set up a proper infrastructure to breed and manage livestock has led to low milk and meat yields, and increasing prices. Meanwhile, fodder and feed prices continue to rise. Bowed down by issues of civic problems and land ownership, the dairy farmers of Cattle Colony do not have the capacity to invest in their futures. The intervention must come from the government.
“The problems will not disappear if shops are raided and milkmen jailed,” mused Mr Shah of the Sindh Abadgar Board.
“Pakistan is amongst the highest milk producers in the world but cannot meet the needs of its own population. We have the best breeds but the West outstrips us in productivity. Cattle Colony farmers must be given incentives to save their livestock resources, and public-private partnerships can enable the set-up of facilities for breed identification and production. We should aim for cross-breeding and local gene preservation.”
