The Dairy Value Chain

By tradition dairy farming has been a prestigious occupation in the fertile lands of the Indus basin. In Pakistan, the practice of rearing dairy animals remained a complementary activity to crop production. Deeply embedded in the rural life, dairy farming still is a sign of prestige within the agriculture sector; it forms an integral part of the socio-economic activities in rural areas and plays a supportive role in mitigating the effects of poverty by providing essential food items of daily use, family income, and employment for family and hired labor. In addition, buffalo and cattle are the main source of fuel for cooking, an excellent organic amendment to maintain the soil fertility and a potential source of biogas production. Despite its importance, Pakistan’s dairy sector has received very little attention from policy makers in the past. In consequence, milk production per animal is very low and the genetic makeup of the animal stock is poor. The sector mostly operates on a non-commercial basis, and its organized segment covers only a small fraction of the country’s total milk production.