Livestock secretary Naseem Sadiq on Tuesday said that 1.5 million poultry birds would be distributed among farmers as a step towards poverty alleviation.

He was chairing a meeting at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad. He sought the help of UAF experts in the project in order to promote best indigenous breeds among the farmers. He said that the UAF had developed the Unigold breed of hen that will address the issue of backyard poultry. He said that 93 percent of our livestock farmers are small farmers which are having two to four animals. He said that they were launching a project of initiating trainings to 50,000 farmers including 25000 male and 25000 female farmers from the each village of the province. He also said the University assistance in this regards would prove fruitful to bring about the change in the lives of the farming community. He said the dream of poverty alleviation was directly linked to agriculture sector in which livestock was playing a pivotal role. He said that the country was importing wool of Rs 3 billion. He said that our ecosystem is disturbing. He said that they had collected the data of 5.5 million farmers regarding their animals and other factors. He said that in the Cholistan, there were only 1.6 million animals were reported whereas in actual, it was 0.9 million animals. He said that the government was on the right direction to address the issue of the farming community. He hailed the services of the UAF for the development of the agriculture sector. He said that they were conducting the mapping the livestock disease. He said that the cooperative farming was being done by one percent farmers. He called for a paradigm shift to tackle the Foot and Mouth Disease threat. He said that the government is now shifting its focus from treatment to prevention of the disease. Livestock farmers do not get actual return of its animal cost, he said and added import of powder milk and wool was disappointing.

UAF Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan offered his institutional support to formulate the policies and to address of the problems of the livestock. He suggested chalking out long term research engagement with the livestock department. He said foot and mouth disease was causing a hug loss to the sector. He said the UAF had developed mastitis vaccine and surf field Mastitis Diagnostics Kit in order to overcome disease and introduced Antiparasitic Medicine for animals. He said that the UAF had made tremendous success in developing wound healers superior to pyodine.