NAROWAL, PAKISTAN, Aug 27: Pakistani Shahzad Iqbal abandoned the jet-set lifestyle of a corporate executive because he wanted to do something worthwhile for his country. So he invested his life savings in world-class bull semen.
He imports the sperm from potent bulls in the West, with names like Socrates, Air Raid and Liberator, and sells it at affordable prices to farmers so they can breed cows that produce higher volumes of quality milk.
Iqbal is one of a band of trailblazers – from small-town entrepreneurs to managers in multi-national companies – who want to transform Pakistan’s ramshackle dairy industry into a multi-billion dollar enterprise.
“It’s going to take a revolution to turn it around,” said Iqbal, as his farm workers moved metal cylinders filled with liquefied nitrogen gas that store the semen at -196 Celsius (-321 Fahrenheit).
If Iqbal and his comrades can succeed in their mission to overturn centuries-old practices and introduce modern techniques, they could open the door to a revolution in the livelihoods of millions of impoverished farmers.
The dismal state of the dairy industry is a striking example of Pakistan’s habit of missing opportunities throughout a 65-year history tainted by military coups, political infighting and a form of crony capitalism that has stifled entrepreneurship.
With 63 million cows and buffaloes, Pakistan has one of the world’s biggest herds, but it cannot export milk because the animals’ yields are so low.
Preoccupied by power struggles and tension with the army, successive governments have failed to realise the potential of the sector, which engages about 35 million people, or 20 percent of the population, in direct or related work.
While other countries worked on ways to improve livestock gene pools, fodder and veterinary medicine, Pakistan largely left its farmers to fend for themselves over the decades.
The result is a haphazard supply chain riddled with inefficiencies stretching from the cow’s udder all the way to the tea cup.
(agencies)
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