July 09, 2008	Wednesday	Rajab 5, 1429

HYDERABAD, July 8: The director of Animal Breeding Sindh, Dr Abdul Khaliq Junejo, said on Tuesday that 130 veterinary hospitals would be established across the province to preserve high quality seed, which would on the one hand generate 1,200 new jobs and on the other raise daily income of animal breeders and milk producers by Rs300 per day.

Mr Junejo said at a news conference at the press club that unlike Pakistan, there was a division throughout the world between meat-producing animals and milk-producing animals but there was no such division in Pakistan hence shortage of two essential products.

He said that due to separate breeding of animals for meat and milk, cow in other countries produced on an average 45 to 50 litres of milk per day and a two-year-old animal produced between 800 to 1000 kilogrammes meat.

Contrary to this, a cow or buffalo in Pakistan produced between six to eight litres of milk per day and a three-and-a-half-year-old animal’s meat weighed only about 350 kg, he said.

He said that there was a great gap between demand and supply for meat and milk in the country and in most of the cases the milk supplied to country fellows was adulterated.

Mr Junejo stressed the need for increasing production of meat and milk and said that steps were being taken to increase quantity of two products through artificial breeding.

He said the government had approved a number of schemes for increasing production of the two essential products, which would help raise their production by 100 to 200 per cent. It would be done through insemination of imported high quality seed, he said.

He said that to ensure success of the projects, latest training was being imparted to employees at the Agriculture University of Faisalabad and Veterinary University of Lahore under a European Union-funded project. The Rs1.812 billion projects would be completed within next five years, he added.