Unleashing Punjab’s $50 billion meat & dairy potential

Given our economic mess, Pakistan should harness each and every bit of its natural and human-enabled strengths for economic growth and sustainable development.

This is especially true when we face dependency on select sectors and a mounting challenge from the developed world in terms of trade wars and sheer competitiveness.We must cast away with space-age type visions. Pakistan and its economic future should be envisaged with an entirely new approach, but to make our mark right away, in an increasingly competitive global market, our focus should be on low hanging fruits.

‘A country rich in livestock can never be poor.’Livestock is 2/3rds of our Agriculture. Agriculture is 15% of GDP- that makes livestock’s share around 11% of our GDP.The significance of Punjab’s livestock and dairy sector is irrefutable. Punjab produces a staggering 62% of the nation’s milk, 43% of its beef, 32% of the mutton, and 75% of poultry consumed in the country.

Already being the food basket of Pakistan, with the right planning, investment and dedication, Punjab should now turn into becoming the food factory of the world helping us enter in an era of unprecedented economic growth.

New Zealand, a country of just 5 million, 1/3rd the size of the City Lahore, has dairy exports crossing $23 billion this year. They emphasise on research, genetic advancement, and efficient supply chain management.

The global dairy market size is expected to reach a value of $1032.7 billion by 2024. Yet, despite us being the fourth largest milk producer - production well beyond 65 million tonnes a year - in the world, Pakistan’s share in the global pie is nothing to write home about.

The global halal meat market is crossing $2.8 trillion and is projected to reach $7.5 trillion by 2032. We are in a very good position to tap this sector. Brazil was the largest beef exporter in the world in 2020 followed by Australia, the US, India and Argentina. Brazil alone accounted for roughly 24% of the world’s beef exports in 2020. The country even exports halal meat to our neighbour Iran with who we have a 909km border.

The case of Australia is also quite an interesting one. Production wise, Australia is only a notch above Pakistan with 2.123 million tons of beef produced annually compared to Pakistan’s 1.82 million tons.Yet, in terms of exports, Australia is the second biggest exporter of meat, supplying 13.66% of the global demand for beef.

Australia has achieved this remarkable feat thanks to meticulous attention to animal breeding and health, use of technology to control disease and enhance production, value addition and a supply chain network that allows meat to reach international markets as efficiently as possible.

Given the stats and the potential, Pakistan must at least eye a 5% share of the global meat supply. Additionally, Pakistan stands a greater chance of gaining a stronger foothold in the international market given the surging demand for halal meat.In my tenure as Minister Livestock and Dairy Development in Punjab, we focused on revamping the entire dairy and livestock sector and building it bit by bit through best practices and the use of technology. We introduced several key measures to improve production, control disease, and better feed. All this helped improve meat export in a year from $350M to $550M.

Strategies like ensuring animal traceability for tens of thousands and registration of large farms in the thousands helped exporters double their export value. Establishment of the 1st Disease Control Compartment in Pakistan’s history over a 5Sq-km area made produce eligible for global export. India established their first one in the 1990s.

Provision of superior high protein fodder on 37,000 acres that could itself be an export commodity ensured higher production, allocation of Rs32 billion in low interest loans for farmers to acquire silage machines, cold milk storage facilities, vehicles and animals, establishment of cooperative farming in each district, giving half of unused livestock farms in tens of thousands of acres for public-private partnership and corporate farming to friendly countries via SIFC, improvement of 1.1 million non-descript cattle to boost average production from 5litres to 9litres and average weight of animal from 350kg to 550kg, designating Bahawalpur as Meat Zone with all facilities, DG Khan as Mutton zone by provision of free rams and bucks, establishing SEZA in Bahawalpur for Meat & Dairy Processing, improving livestock department services by adding mobile veterinary labs and installing trackers and using technology all helped in taking a step towards our goal of becoming a livestock powerhouse.

With so much potential in only a single economic sector, we need to focus our efforts on harnessing this sector for maximum impact. The fundamental prerequisites: an abundance of fertile agricultural land and water, a huge livestock base, and low cost labor that is well versed with farming is already present.

Now is the time to put it to proper use for the well-being of the province, the country and its people.

(The writer is president of a private university and a former provincial minister)