PROSPECTIVE OF DAIRY FARMING IN CHOLISTAN

Published: November 20, 2011

By: Shahzad Ashraf, H.R.Chuadry, U. Farooq, Hikmat Fatima, Serug Akhter.

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. The Cholistan desert is located in southern Punjab extending through the Nara and Thar deserts of Sindh (Pakistan) between latitudes 27o 42 and 29′o 45 N and longitudes 69′o 52 and 75′o 24 E, covering about 2.6 million hectares. It supports a human population of 110,000 pastoral nomads depending exclusively upon livestock for their livelihood. To address the rising demand for milk and milk products, the large stake holders of dairy industry are looking to boost the milk collection area and want to bring remote areas in their milk collection chain. In this view, Cholistan is of great importance as it has great potential for dairy farming. A large population of cholistani cow, camels and jattal breed of goat, are present in this area, can produce a large quantity of milk for country. By working on the different natural vegetation, this desert can be a great pasture for the dairy animals. After the monsoon, the herds of dairy animals from the nearby urban areas like Yazman, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, and Rahim Yar Khan migrate to the cholistani areas for grazing. There is need of time to establish a proper dairy industry in Cholistan. By providing technical and market facilities to the local farmers in Cholistan help to achieve this task. Dairy faming not only provides the livelihood and food to the peoples of cholistan but also help to meet the food need of whole country. Keywords: Cholistan, Southern Punjab, Nomads, Yazman, Jattal goat

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