ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: The agricultural scientists should focus their attention on the development of commercial poultry sector to meet the country’s dietary requirements and to enhance the income of farmers.

This was stated by the chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Dr Badaruddin Soomro, while presiding over a meeting on researchable issues of commercial poultry sector at the PARC Headquarters here.

The meeting was attended by a five-member delegation of the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) headed by its chairman Dr Muhammad Amjad, members of the council and NARC scientists.

The main objective of the meeting was to focus on research and development activities in poultry sector and to develop a special agenda to carry out demand driven research.

Dr Soomro said the PARC was providing active research support to solve the problems of the poultry sector. He said the PARC had saved the industry by developing a vaccine against the fatal disease, known as ‘hydro-pericardium’.

“Under the Agricultural Linkage Programme (ALP), the PARC has funded four research projects with a total cost of Rs8.92 million to address the problems of coccidiosis, infectious bronchitis virus and hydro-pericardium syndrome virus”, Dr Soomro said.

The commercial poultry sector has expanded considerably during the last few decades and is contributing a lot to meet the country’s meat and eggs requirements, he added.

“The sector produced 270,000 tons of poultry meat, which was 75 per cent of the total poultry meat production in the country”.

Currently, poultry meat constitute 16.4 per cent of the total meat produced in the country, Dr Soomro said.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Amjad said the poultry industry was linked with agriculture and provided employment to thousands of farm workers.

“The infrastructure of commercial poultry sector comprised of an investment of nearly Rs53 billion with an annual turn-over of about Rs40 billion”, he said.