Farmers call for national breeding policy

Stress need to preserve local breeds; call for policy reforms to boost indigenous meat, milk production

KARACHI:

While engaging local communities in breeding programmes to ensure ownership and sustainability aimed at reducing inbreeding and enhancing meat-cum-milk production for local consumption and export, noted researchers and progressive livestock farmers urged the government to form and implement a comprehensive national breeding policy to support indigenous breed improvement on a war footing.

Moreover, Sindh is naturally rich in indigenous and famous livestock, making it unnecessary to import foreign breeds that cannot acclimatise to the local weather.

Talking to The Express Tribune on Monday, progressive livestock farmer Syed Zarar Haider Shah from Tando Allahyar district of Sindh said local livestock breeds have acclimatised themselves to the hot weather in Sindh, as they have been living here for thousands of years.

He said these local animals have better feed consumption ratios. For example, if a Jatten breed, male or female, eats fodder or grass and feed as per a recommended diet plan, it can gain 278 grams of weight per day.

When it comes to a sheep breed, he said Turkish (Dumba) sheep have been in vogue for years because this breed originates from the Gobi Desert in Asia, where temperatures fluctuate greatly, ranging from minus 40 degrees in winter to almost 40 degrees in summer. Therefore, they are fully able to survive in Pakistan's summer temperatures, which can reach up to 50 degrees in Sindh, he said.

He urged the importance of conducting full-fledged research on cross-breeding, artificial insemination, and other modern techniques to promote exotic and local breeds instead of importing foreign breeds that cannot adapt to local conditions. He advised livestock farmers to avoid foreign breeds unable to survive in the local climate.

Eminent livestock researcher Dr Pershotam Khatri said, "We have to take initiatives to preserve and promote our indigenous breeds, including the Red Sindhi Cow, Kundhi buffalo, and goats such as Kamori, Jatten, Barri, Pateri, Tapri, and other local varieties, to meet the rising consumption of meat and milk and export meat. Our local breeds are becoming extinct, which is a loss to Sindh's identity. On top of that, these indigenous varieties, such as the Kamori and Jatten goat, Red Sindhi Cow, and Kundhi buffalo, are also used as symbols of status in Sindh, apart from producing large quantities of milk."

Progressive farmers and researchers said the poor conception rate in buffaloes through artificial insemination should be addressed by using superior germplasm, reproductive physiology, and improving technician skill capacity. They recommended introducing an artificial inseminators' license policy, with licenses issued and renewed every one to two years.

They also called for discouraging the mass slaughter of buffalo calves. They stressed the need for coordination between district administrations, departments, and academia to address this issue. Genome-edited semen can be used to improve livestock production by using semen from outstanding elite proven or pedigree bulls and utilising artificial insemination services to expand the gene pool.

Experts suggested encouraging local soybean production to ensure continuity in animal production as a protein source. They proposed extending breeding services initiatives to goats, sheep, donkeys, and horses to enhance meat production and draft power.

Both the federal and provincial governments should collaborate to invest in research, training, and farmer awareness programmes to enhance breed improvement efforts. They recommended registering livestock farmers and their breeds while promoting sexed semen and embryo transfer technologies through subsidised funding for genetic improvement.

Existing semen production units need accreditation, and embryo transfer laboratories should be established to propagate elite animals. They highlighted the need to strengthen the genomic laboratory at Sindh Agriculture University (SAU) to enhance the productivity of indigenous breeds, noting that this lab is equipped with competent experts and modern infrastructure.

They called for implementing selective breeding programmes to enhance desirable traits such as fertility, growth rate, and disease resistance in indigenous breeds through modern genetic and breeding technologies.