A livestock policy had been on the cards for the better part of the current fiscal year. It had actually become public in a piecemeal manner through statements of officials and programmers.

Strictly speaking, information on the policy given on March 1, 2006 from Islamabad by the Prime Minister, Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) and its Secretary is still anything but comprehensive.

The government’s position on many issues and areas of the sector remains to be elaborated. Ambiguity so intersperses the policy that one feels that some details are yet to be made public.

A policy needs to be laid down in black and white in all its implications rather than disseminated through press talks and comments by concerned officials who make their observations while discussing other subjects or taking them up in another context.

The PM referred to the policy in passing and discussed its potential impact on poverty and growth more than discussing or evaluating ways ands means for achieving ends identified by Minfal colleagues.

The policy is ambitious, exceptionally so and considerably more ambitious than any other declared or unannounced undertaking of the present government since its assumption of power in October 1999.

Political ends and aims of the government are of course another dispensation and not to be compared with the policies on any subject. Other than that, the livestock policy presents a new dimension of lofty thinking that props up the question: is the policy hollow and for the gallery or contains anything concrete or meaningful for the sector, too?

The growth of the sector is planned to be doubled by 2010. We are now in 2006 and the policy is yet to reach the implementation stage. Four years is too short a period for the envisaged growth by enhancing indigenous meat, milk and wool production to meet the six to seven per cent target of overall growth rate by 2010; the current growth is three per cent.

This is to be done by ‘encouraging the private sector to lead while the government either acts as a catalyst or plays a regulatory role’. Meat production would be taken from 2.7 per cent to five per cent while milk’s current three per cent growth would be doubled to stand at six per cent. No envisaged growth figures have been given for the wool.

The current milk production has been placed at 29 million tons that is to raised to 40 million tons every year. As far as I can recall, Pakistan has been proudly quoting itself as the fifth highest milk producer in the world with a production of 25 million tons. If the production figure can jump by three million tons within no time and without explanation, all growth rates should be achievable. Still, some rationale is required to back up claims. No mechanism for implementing policies has been established, even proposed.

The areas of work and jurisdictions of federal and provincial government appear to have been defined. This has not been done in any institutional manner but demarcations have been carried out in an interview of the Secretary Minfal with one of the newspapers covering the announcement of the policy. Such principles need to be spelled out officially rather than enunciated indirectly and verbally.

But nothing has been lost because the official has merely repeated what is being practiced. The only objection can be that these practices are intertwined with forces of status quo that represent vested interest elements that look at progress as anathema. While provincial governments are said to be have been taken on board, the announcement of the policy was not jointly undertaken by the federal and provincial officials.

It was all the way a federal show in an area that belongs to the provinces. Further, how Balochistan would participate in the implementation of the policy is anybody’s guess and this is not being pointed out because of conditions currently prevailing in the province but in view of the wholly different and distinctly peculiar local structure of the provincial livestock. Perhaps, a special edition of the policy would be prepared for dealing with the needs of Blochistan’s livestock.

This has been done for the welfare of human population of the province and treatment of animals of the province on that pattern could well be part of the governmental approach. This is not political comment but pointing out that the sum total of the policy is not composition of totality of the sector.

Requirements of different regions can obviously not be identical due to climatic, geographical, cultural, ethnic, historical and social factors but a national policy is expected to cater to all segments equitably at least to the extent that is possible. No attempt has been made in the policy, or at least none can be identified, for assimilating varied demands and ends and tying them together.

Consequently, the policy creates the impression of being directed towards a limited segment of the population that not only excludes specific chunks of the sector but its main strength. The fact is that the main livestock breeding population has not been addressed by the policy; it has indeed been grossly ignored. Does that pave the way for making the sector more efficient and more productive? The answer can only be in the negative.

The Prime Minister is reported to have emphasized the need for moving ‘from subsistence farming to market-oriented and commercial farming’. The sector is currently, in fact traditionally, overwhelmingly composed of subsistence farmers. Their number runs in millions and is officially assessed to be between six to seven million. This segment owns the bulk of present population of livestock, specifically cows and buffaloes, each family looking after a minimum of one to a maximum of five animals. Can professional activities of these breeders be commercialized to their advantage?

The answer in this case is also in the negative because there is no mileage in commercialization of such small units. Neither are owners of these units attracted to commercial ventures because this would imply abandoning of other survival interests.

Livestock is not their sole bread earner but it is a vital component of livestock owners’ and breeders’ survival recipe. The thing to remember is that except in some cases, livestock breeding is major not full-time occupation in Pakistan. This is so because income from the livestock is restricted as its investment and returns can be managed on a small scale.

A frightening conclusion can be drawn from this premise: small owners would have no place in the commercialized scheme of things and their elimination would become essential for the success of the new policy. This is not a prophecy of doom for the sector but a concrete possibility as wages of rapid development without clearing the garbage littering the road to progress. The situation becomes graver in the context of track record of failure of dairy farming in Pakistan.

Milk provided by the organized sector to the market is just about two per cent while the rest of the supplies are from the traditional system. There is no scheme for changing this equation. Unless this situation is addressed and this is done for the betterment of the 98 per cent, there can be little development in the livestock sector. Basic issues and problems need to be resolved. The livestock policy has not even attempted that.

While the problems identified above are substantial, greater complications confront livestock’s development. Some of them are of a technical nature while others are inherent in the sector. The government cannot move forward without finding solutions. We discuss them next week.