Pakistan eyes US support for livestock uplift

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has showed keen interest in collaborating with the Sindh government for extending support to dairy and meat sector in Sindh.

According to Sindh livestock secretary Laiq Ahmed Memon, a scheme for raising productivity and income of the farmers at the cost of PKR500 million (US$5.89 million) will be started very soon.

Laiq said the USAID was launching the Empower Pakistan Livestock Development Project (EPLDP) with the US$75 million investment under Pakistan agriculture programme (EPAG) which aimed to gear up a broad based effort to promote economic growth in order to alleviate poverty in rural areas of Pakistan.

The project will work at villages, districts, provincial and national level, aiming to provide milk produce and dairy entrepreneurs with training, technical assistance and assess to credit, inputs and services.

Funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Laiq noted that the master plan study on livestock, meat and dairy development in the province is aimed to achieve a balanced development and poverty reduction through promotion of livestock, meat and dairy.

The plan will direct the way forward to enhance comparative advantage of livestock, meat and dairy sector in Sindh, which will serve as a vehicle for social security, poverty alleviation, national food security as well as strengthening domestic and international competitiveness.

The main objective of the master plan was to formulate the livestock, meat and dairy development strategy for 2020 in Sindh through identifying present situation, bottlenecks and comparative advantage of livestock, official said. In this regard, the agreement has been signed between GOP/Sindh government and government of Japan.

Meanwhile, the Sindh government has planned to set up Sindh Dairy and Meat Development Company and to initiate master plan study on livestock meat and dairy development under JICA grant during current fiscal year.