PROBLEMS OF DAIRY FARMING IN CHOLISTAN

Published: November 20, 2011

By: Shahzad Ashraf, H.R. Chaudhry, Hikmat Fatima , Furqan Bashir.

Summary

The Cholistan Desert, once a prosperous, lively, and thriving jungle is now by and large a desolated piece of land. Its productivity potential is on the decline despite the fact that the number of animals in this desert is on the increase. This sandy desert is situated in the southern part of Punjab with highly saline soils and a brackish subsoil aquifer. It supports a human population of 110,000 pastoral nomads depending exclusively upon livestock for their livelihood. Milk is the most nutritious constituent of their food and main source of daily income. It is natural habitat of Cholistani cow, which is considered to be the ancestor of Sahiwal cow, have a great potential for milk production. Cholistani cow on an average is capable of producing 1,000 liters of milk per annum and if improvement plans are implemented, this average can be enhanced up to 1,700-1,800 liters per annum, but still the milk production of this area is very less. A long list of problem account for this, which are unplanned breeding, use of inferior bulls for breeding, lack of infrastructure, Informal production, lack of milk collection chain, involvement of middle man, improper methods for preservation of milk, unavailability of market, inadequate feed resources, epidemics of infectious diseases, low investment and less interest of authorities, limited credit availability, seasonality, high temperature, lack of co-operation between local farmers. All these problems can be solved by proper planning by government and by developing interest of private stake holders in this region. Keywords: Cholistan, Cholistani cow, Nomads, Milk, Daily Income.

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