ADP No/Code:  ­­­39/150601

Cost of the Project: 8 Million

Duration of the Project: 2 Years (2015-2017)

Location of the Project: The Project is implemented in District Peshawar Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Objectives of the Project

·         To document the causes of calf mortality.

·         To control the causes of heavy calf mortality.

·         To improve the management practices of calf rearing.

·         To convert the dairy industry into successful enterprise.

Expected results

· Calf mortality will be reduced and thus not only the income of farmers will increase but also the chances of selection of replacement heifers and bulls get increase.

·         Meat & milk production will be increase

·         Diseases in the animals associated with the management and nutrition will be minimized.

Description & Justification and Technical Parameters of the Project

Existing facilities

The Livestock Research & Development Station Surezai Peshawar is situated in Mera Surezai about 27 Km away from Peshawar. It has total 178.2 acres land while 10acres land at Fodder section. It has Farm Management Division including animal health section which provides in time treatment to the farm animals. The section also contains one small level laboratory having basic facilities for detection of parasitic diseases. However, for bacteriological tests samples will sent to Veterinary Research Institute, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Peshawar and for feed analysis to Center of Animal Nutrition, Directorate of Livestock Research and Development, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Peshawar.Despite the progress in industrial development, agriculture still provides employment for a majority of the people in Pakistan. Livestock is an integral part of our agriculture and there is hardly any farm in the country, which does not have livestock. These animals are the main sources of quality food and daily income to the farmers. The importance of livestock and the dairy animals in particular for our farmers is obvious and indeed for consumer also, because the availability of good quality milk and meat is becoming costly day by day. There are some very important breeds of livestock, which are well adapted to humid condition, tolerant to diseases and converters of low quality roughages into milk, meat and draught power. The genetic potential of our livestock is much higher than the production level we are getting. However, their potential can be increased by protecting them from different diseases and better feeding. If properly fed and managed our livestock, substantial increase in milk production can be obtained from existing livestock. Preventing early calf mortality can play an important role in development of an efficient and productive livestock industry. Unfortunately, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, not enough attention is given to young calves in terms of their feeding and in time vaccination and treatment. Like other provinces of the Pakistan the human population of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has also increased over the years and their requirements for milk and beef and other animal products have also increased. Calves are the future stock of the herd. If the calf mortality is high the chances of good replacement heifers/bulls get reduced and one of the products of the farm for income generation gets waste. It is therefore, essential to reduce calf mortality and bring it down below 10%. Therefore this project is designed for awareness & education of farmers. The farmers will be educated for proper management, feeding, diseases including worm/ parasitic infestation and feed management for improving calves health and immunity, which will effectively reduce the mortality rate.

Livestock population: The estimated livestock population of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to livestock census reports for various years is given in table-1.

 Table-1     Livestock number in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

*Livestock Census 2006, ** Economic survey of Pakistan 2013-14

 Feed Balancing:- From the livestock population figures presented earlier for cattle, buffaloes, sheep and goats a calculation can be made for the expected annual demand of total digestible nutrients (TDN).

Table -2.  Estimates of Annual Feed Requirements for Livestock in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Justification of the Project

Buffaloes and cows have the main contribution in milk and meat production. Livestock, the vital sector of our economy contributing Rs.53 billion in GNP annually. In view of our increasing human population, the supply position of dietary nutrients viz; milk, meat and butter is going to be the worst in the days to come as their demand will increase by 50% in the year 2020 for increased population of 203 million. At present, a huge amount of about Rs.700 million is being spent from exchequer annually on the import of dried milk. The trend of meat price is also on increase and the growing demand of milk, butter, meat and other products for human population emphasizes the need for increased care to protect the young stock from microbial diseases and malnutrition so that  production is increased.(UN Department of Economic and Social Affair Population Division).The highest mortality (39.0%) was recorded in buffalo neonatal calves in Pakistan (Zaman et al., 2006). The prevailing system in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa about calf rearing is very disastrous. The commercial farmers of this province do not rear calves at their farms. They sell the calves to the butcher just at the age of first week. The main reasons of this malpractice are huge mortality at pre weaning age stage and high milk price resultantly the farmers get rid of their calves and thus drain of genetic worth is continuously practices in this month. Therefore this project aims to investigate and minimize the factors, which contribute to early calf mortality in cows and buffaloes. Determination of such clues may possibly be a great tool to take appropriate measure to reduce the death losses and to improve the sources of protein availability.

Benefits of the Project

The demand for milk & meat is increasing day by day. All the dairy development activities depends upon the plenty availability of required balance ration. The improved breed of cattle and buffalo can easily be raised in these areas. However the improved breed of animals needs plenty of needful feed and rations to get optimum production from these animals. The recent research studies showed that calves protected early from diseases and malnutrition can give better result in persistent production of milk & meat from high yielding animals.  During the implementation stage-I and stage-II the research benefits will be transferred to the progressive farmers and interested investor of dairy industry.

The benefit of research will be transfer to farmers’ community so that they will be able to:

·    Keeps the calves healthy in project area.

·    Have Minimum risk of nutritional deficiency disease.

·    Increase milk and meat production in future.

The Livestock Research & Development Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Peshawar aims at reducing the poverty of the rural population (particularly small holders, tenant, the land less farmers and women), enhance their income, and improve the standards of people living in the more backward areas of Peshawar by assisting to create a semi-permanent structure to support village-level development and by providing capacity-building and training support, the project aims at contributing to institutional reforms.

Financial Benefits: The project will assist to produce high quality and priced more milk and meat in future. For this purpose, the  infrastructure proposed in the project will be operationalize in District Peshawar and  the experiences got in 2 years will be multiplied to further cities in coming year. The major benefit of which will be increase in the income of the farmers, changing subsistence livestock in to sustainable milk & meat production and improve its products quality. This will enhance milk and meat production, which will ultimately increase the farmer’s profitability by 15-20 percent.

Economic Benefits: The project will support investment by providing solutions to problems confronting the livestock industry, by means of technical knowhow, by providing economic analysis and surveys, feasibilities studies and market intelligence.