THE Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority lifted import restrictions on Pakistan on November 7 after the two countries agreed on a protocol to resume trade of live animals after 11 years.

Earlier, on July 18, Pakistan had lifted a 13-year old ban on July 18 on import of live animals from the countries affected by ‘mad cow disease’. The ban was imposed to protect the country’s livestock from the risk of contracting the disease. The countries most affected were the highly developed states of the West.

Currently a majority of farms in Pakistan import Holstein cows from Australia. For meat and dairy business, the imports from that part of the world proved very costly, barely affordable by a few businessmen. Many prefer such cows from the US. The decision by the government to allow imports from ‘negligible risk’ countries has removed the hurdle in the way of such imports. Pakistani farms plan to import dairy cattle, mostly Holstein Friesian.

The agreement comes at a time when the export of live animals, mostly meant for slaughter, is facing worldwide opposition because of incidents of cruelty during the transportation. There is a demand that only meat and other livestock products be exported. A case in point is that of Australia which exported over 160m live animals in the last thirty years and more than 2.5m of them died en route at sea from cruelty, trauma, disease and starvation, giving birth to a movement for ban on export of live animals.

However, the Dutch exports will be different. These are essentially of dairy cattle, which in combination with their expertise and services, aim at enhancing productivity of Pakistan’s growing dairy sector. The Netherlands is known for being one of the breeders of the famous Holstein Friesian cow.

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority is now encouraging small entrepreneurs to invest in the dairy sector and is holding training programmes for them to create awareness about the latest production and marketing techniques

Pakistan exports beef and mutton to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, and also to Vietnam in the Far East while animal casings are exported to selective EU markets. There is also a great demand for live animals in Middle Eastern countries and Afghanistan but it is subject to government policy which keeps changing.

However, in the wake of March 2009 decision by the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet to allow export of live animals, Pakistan had exported 275,000 cattle and 232,000 sheep to various countries during 2009-13. Later in a July 30, 2013 meeting, the ECC reversed its decision after being told that the country has suffered huge losses as a result of animal exports which had also pushed up meat prices in the country.

Pakistan, according to a Dutch diplomat, is the third largest milk producing country in the world. About a third of the total milk produced by the rural families flows out to urban consumers and processing industries. According to official statistics, the country produced 50.9m tonnes of milk during 2013-14 compared to 47.8m tonnes during 2011-12. Pakistan, which exported 42,105 tonnes of milk and milk powder in 2013, is also among top 10 exporters.

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (Smeda) is now encouraging small entrepreneurs to invest in the dairy sector and is holding training programmes for them to create awareness about the latest production and marketing techniques.

Livestock sector in Pakistan could not be developed at a rapid pace owing to a number of factors such as poor technology, lack of institutional support, degradation of grazing pastures, absence of a proper breeding policy and lack of active interest on the part of successive governments in developing this sector. However, thanks to private sector’s efforts, dairy farming has been making advances.

Today, Pakistan has a herd size of more than 74m animals (cattle and buffaloes). Over 35m people are involved in dairy farming which means the average animal holding size per farm is less than three. Cattle farming is highly fragmented.

The per day yield of the small farmer’s cattle is between 4-5 litres of milk when compared with 30-40 litres per day from an animal in the developed world.

Meanwhile, the global demand for dairy products is set to rise by 36pc by 2024 owing to a growing population, fast pace of urbanisation and increase in purchasing power of middle classes. This demand, mostly in emerging and developing countries, is unlikely to be met by locally produced milk.

Countries such as China and Saudi Arabia are increasing investment in domestic dairy farming along with joint ventures with multinationals to meet the challenge. However, it offers a great opportunity to Pakistan’s dairy sector to compete and increase its exports to other countries.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, December 8th , 2014