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Buffalo Black Gold of Pakistan

 

Introduction

Pakistan is primarily an agricultural based country and Livestock plays a pivotal role in its economy by providing essential items of human diet in the form of milk, meat and eggs etc. At present, livestock is contributing about 46.0 per cent of agricultural value added and 10.6 per cent to the GDP (Economic Survey of Pakistan. 2005). Foreign earnings of the livestock sector exceed 35 billion rupees annually. It also provides wool, hair, hide, skin, blood, bones, and farmyard manure and is a principal source of motive power for cultivation and rural transport. The role of livestock in rural economy may be assessed by the fact that 30 to 35 million of the total rural population is engaged in livestock related activities, having household holdings of 2 to 3 cattle / buffalo and 5 to 6 sheep and goats per family, deriving 30 to 40 per cent of income from it (Bilal and Ahmad 2004). These animals produced 29.472 million tones of milk during 2004-05 besides providing 1.115 million tones of beef and 0.740 million tones of mutton (Economic Survey of Pakistan 2004-05). The role of Livestock is also important to convert crop residues, agricultural by-products and wastes into milk, meat, wool, hair etc. In this regard especially buffalo can efficiently convert poor roughages into valuable products, like meat and milk. Otherwise these by-products and wastes would lead to an increase in environmental pollution, which is the most serious issue at present.

A milch buffalo is generally looked upon as a prestigious possession of the family, as the number of buffaloes kept by farmers determines the wealth and status in the society. To the rural poor and landless families, in house buffalo farming provides the only means of subsistence. During the last two decades there has been a growing awareness to develop buffalo-based dairy and meat industry in the near and far eastern regions. (Bilal 2004)

The total milk produce in the country is not fulfilling the human needs. The most important reason for this shortening is that, human population is increasing day by day (at the rate of 3 % annually), but the milk production is not increasing at the same pace. No doubt, milk production has shown an increasing trend over last several years, but this increase in milk production is due to increase in total number of milk producing animals and is not due to increase in per animal production. Presently, Pakistan is importing dry milk and products of worth Rs. 1.1 billion, which is a burden on our economy. The production per animal is less due to several reasons, some of them include, low genetic potential of our animals; late age of maturity; shortage of feed and fodder; high disease incidence; unorganized marketing system and farming on traditional lines (Bilal and Ahmad 2004). Beside of the fact that, when milk is compared with major crops, it is evident that the value of milk is more than the combined value of wheat and cotton and twice that of sugar cane and rice combined. (Bilal and Sajid 2005)

An overview of world buffalo

Important buffalo producing Asiatic countries are India, China, Pakistan, Thailand, Phillipines, Indonesia, Burma, Ceylon and Egypt. Milch buffaloes are, however, mostly found in Pakistan, India and Egypt. In other countries they are swamp type, which are primarily used as draft and meat animals.

World buffalo population has reached to 130 million (FAOSTAT 2005). Of all domestic animals, Asian buffalo holds the greatest promise and potential for production (Cockrill 1994). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO 2000) has rightly termed buffalo as an important but 'an asset undervalued'. The World buffalo population increased by 91% between 1961 and 2001. The buffalo in Far East is called as swamp buffalo and mainly used as a draft animal in paddy crops. This type of buffalo is of small size with compact body and having straight horns. While Mediterranean buffaloes found in Italy, the Balkan states, Turkey and in some part of Russia. This type of buffalo is also of small size giving 1400-1500 liters milk per lactation. Italian buffalo cheese is very much liked by the European people. Buffalo is also found in Iraq, Iran Azerbaijan and in the other countries of Middle East. But the major part of the said buffalo is found in Egypt followed by Iraq. This buffalo is a dual purpose animal mainly used for milk and meat following by traction in the fields. Major proportion of feral buffalo is found in Australia. This animal is mainly found in the forests and not yet domesticated. The water buffalo plays a vital role in the agricultural economy of the South-Asian and Far-Eastern countries, where nearly 96 % of its total population in the world is concentrated. In this vast, sprawling region, and in spite of the changing agrarian patterns, it continues to remain the major source of tractive power, milk and meat. At world level India ranked number one in buffalo milk production, followed by Pakistan, China and Egypt, respectively. However, Albania is the country producing only seven thousand tons of buffalo milk (Table 1).

 

 

Buffalo in the country

South Asia has five groups (Murrah, Gujrati, Utherperdesh, Central Indian and South Indian) of buffalo breeds. Of these groups the Murrah group (Nili, Ravi, Nili-Ravi, Kundi and Murra) is the leading one, both in the sense of meat and milk production. Nili-Ravi is the best performing animal of this group, producing more milk than the other breeds of the world (2500 liter per lactation) (Bilal, M.Q 2004) Pakistan is fortunate enough in having two best sub-tropical breeds of buffaloes such as Nili-Ravi and Kundi. The best buffalo animals are found in the canal fed areas of the country, where abundant fodder supply and crops by products are available. Here is an overview of the buffalo milk production compared with other species. In Pakistan buffalo is the major dairy animal contributing maximum in total milk production followed by cattle and sheep/goat, respectively. In last fourteen years a significant increase in total milk production (13.2 to 29.5 Million tons) occurred (Table 2). This increase may be attributed mainly to increase in the population of buffaloes, cattle, goat, sheep and partially to per head milk production increase due to adoption of modern husbandry practices by the farmers at a very limited scale.