The Minister said that the country has been facing a domestic deficit in milk supply and dried milk powder has consistently been imported for the past several years to bridge this gap.
He said that according to a FAO study, the gap between production and consumption of milk is estimated to be 3.5 million tons (10 percent) In coming years, this gap to widen considerably with estimated deficit of 55.48 million tons in 2020, the study forecast he referred to.
The mortality rate of calves, is very high due to their poor management and they are not even given the minimum care of naval cord disinfecting, timely colostrum feeding, proper milk feeding and de-worming. 'There is a need that the dairy industry and universities should join hands to face the challenge of saving the future of calves and devise economically viable feeding strategies,' he said. He lauded the UVAS efforts to work with Livestock and Dairy Development Department and private sector entrepreneurs to assist farmers to enhance milk and meat production.
He called for focusing on research in livestock and agriculture to find solutions to the problems saying that the government has taken action against the people involved in the business of spurious agricultural drugs and fertilisers.
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Dr Muhammad Nawaz said that calves' mortality rate can be minimised with proper nutrition and disease prevention and the seminar he said had been arranged to share knowledge and experiences of experts on the issue and suggest recommendations. The Managing Director, ProFarm, Steven Schulting said that objective of the seminar was to share knowledge and get experience on calf nutrition and management and to align efforts to improve calf rearing practices in Pakistan.
The Dean, Life Sciences Business Management, Professor Dr Talat Naseer Pasha said that to maximise the livestock productivity, a high survival of calf is essential properly provisioning quality and quantity of milk from a clean feeding system as well as early assessing weaning diets.
Later, presents were made in two technical sessions, 'Feeding of buffalo calves on early weaning diets' and 'Calf rearing with calf milk replacer' and other related topics. The resource persons of the seminar were from the Netherlands and Pakistan. Practical demonstrations on calf feeding systems were also presented. Dairy breeders, farmers and professionals from public and private sectors and university faculty participated in the seminar.
Meanwhile during his visit to the UVAS, Aulakh visited various departments and labs, including Quality Operational Lab, Pathology Lab, Postmortem section, Aviaries and Bioequivalence Study Centre. The minister also held a meeting with the UVAS VC and discussed with him academic, research and development programmes of the university.