LAHORE – The poultry industry has suggested the government to provide it loans at lower mark-up so that the sector can grow with faster speed, as it ensures the general health of the public by providing them low-priced protein, reducing the government’s spending on health budget. High growth in livestock sector, including poultry farming, has created some demand for bank credit.
Poultry industry noted expert and former PPA chairman Abdul Basit observed that banks credit to the poultry industry has shown a significant drop of over 25 per cent, as they distributed loans of Rs3 billion by October 2012 compared to net loans of Rs4 billion in Jan-Oct 2011.
Basit stated that poultry farms, particularly in Sindh, have availed very limited quantity of bank loans in last two years but total financing has fallen short of their actual needs.
He observed that a majority of the poultry farms unfortunately has no access to traditional bank credit, as certain issues like requirement of collateral makes it difficult for them to meet full demand. Commercial poultry farming has become a major industry and it now meets 40 per cent of the total domestic meat consumption but their share of bank credit is not significant, he added.
He said that the Controlled Shed Poultry Farm with population of 35,000 birds needs a capital investment estimated at Rs 20 million for construction, purchasing machinery and equipment. In addition to this, a sum of Rs 5.7 million is required as working capital, which would be used for purchasing day old chicks and other inputs like feed, vaccines, labours electricity etc.
Replying to a question, he said that grand parents are imported from Europe and USA and feed consists of rich protein elements like canola meal, rapeseed meal, sunflower meal, soyabean meal rich energy elements like grains, gluten, oil molases etc.
Talking about the healthy atmosphere of poultry farms, he made it clear that every bird is getting the cleanest possible water, many farms have RO plants. These reverse osmosis (R.O) plants are also used by bottled watering companies, who are selling mineral water for human consumption. Otherwise filtration and water treatment by sensitising is done to provide cleanest and bacteria-free water to all the birds.
Such healthy atmosphere with proper shelter (environmentally controlled), pure water, proper and timely medication and balanced feed is not available even to 10 per cent people of our country, he said.
He explained that prior to the arrival of the new flock proper cleaning, washing, white washing, disinfections is performed with recommended disinfectants. During flock, strict measures for bio-security are observed at the unit.
Regarding per capita consumption of chicken, he stated that although poultry industry has emerged as the second largest industry of the country with investment of over Rs.400 billion, yet per capita consumption of poultry meat is only 6kg per annum in Pakistan as compared to 41 kilogram in the developed countries.
He said that investment in poultry sector must be coupled with awareness drive regarding importance of poultry meat which is healthy and cheaper.
“The awareness campaign through seminars, walks, debates, exhibitions, cooking competitions and open discussions to alleviate any misconceptions regarding chicken meat health, is an integral part of poultry industry promotion.
He suggested the government to enhance purchasing power of masses by employment generation. And for this purpose the industrialisation process should continue, which is presently hampered by energy crisis and bad policies of our economic managers.
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