KARACHI: Up to 80% of female halal animals end up in slaughterhouses across Pakistan due to ineffective implementation of laws preventing the killing of reproductive animals, industry insiders say, raising food insecurity concerns and fear among meat exporters and other stakeholders that the government may soon need to import livestock due to domestic shortages.
Livestock is a key source of income for more than eight million rural families in Pakistan, who earn up to 40% of their income from this sector, which contributed 60.6% to the overall agriculture sector and 11.7% to the country’s GDP in 2019-20.
Pakistan last conducted a population survey of animals in 2006.
“Nearly 80 percent of female animals that can be used for reproductive purposes are slaughtered in the country every year,” Mian Abdul Hannan, chairman of the All Pakistan Meat Exporters and Processors Association, told Arab News on Tuesday.
An officer at the animal quarantine department at the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, requesting anonymity, said the figure was as high as 90 percent.
“If the trend is not halted, Pakistan will have to import animals soon,” he said.
The Ministry of National Food Security acknowledged the problem, saying there were several laws regulating animal slaughter, though they needed to be enforced.
“These acts come under local governments for execution,” ministry spokesperson Dr. Javed Humayun said. “The Ministry of National Food Security and Research has already taken up the matter with the provinces and also discussed the issue in different stakeholders’ meetings. All provinces are taking necessary steps to avoid the slaughter of female animals for meat purposes. The Punjab Livestock Department is taking the lead in protecting useful animals for dairy.”
Meat exporters recently circulated a pamphlet addressing the president, prime minister and other government functionaries, bringing their attention to unchecked violations of local regulations governing animal slaughter and describing the situation as a “genocide” that would create an “acute shortage” of animals in the country.
Last month, a Lahore-based quarantine officer also wrote a letter to companies running slaughterhouses, asking them to cease the illegal practice.
“The country needs an effective mechanism to differentiate between productive, nonproductive and fit for human consumption animals since the farming community asserts it sells only those animals which are not useful to its members,” Dr. Mohsin Kiani, project manager at the Livestock and Dairy Development Board, told Arab News. “Due to the lack of such effective mechanisms our animal production is declining.”
Karachi’s Cattle Colony houses about a million milk producing animals, mostly buffalos, according to dairy farmers who frequently sell their female livestock without following laws governing the practice.
“About 0.8 million female animals end up in Karachi’s slaughterhouses every year,” Shakir Umar Gujjar, president of the Dairy and Cattle Farmers Association, told Arab News. “At the end of the 270-day lactation period, farmers sell these animals due to lack of space for recycling or reproductive purposes.”
Industry stakeholders believe the ongoing trend will soon create a shortage of milk and meat for human consumption.
“Female animals have been slaughtered for years without any check and the situation is so bad now that the country will soon need to import animals to meet the demand for milk and meat,” Dr. Alamdar Hussain Malik, former secretary of the Pakistan Veterinary Medical Council, told Arab News. “The country needs to take serious measures to save this important economic sector.”
Food insecurity, shortage concerns loom as 80% halal female animals slaughtered in Pakistan
https://arab.news/vps6z
Food insecurity, shortage concerns loom as 80% halal female animals slaughtered in Pakistan
- Pakistan has laws that prohibit slaughtering useful or reproductive animals but they are not implemented
- Experts say government may soon have to import livestock to fulfil domestic demand for meat, dairy products
Imran Khan’s party shutdown draws mixed response; government calls it ‘ineffective’
- Ex-PM Khan’s PTI party had called for a ‘shutter-down strike’ to protest Feb. 8, 2024 general election results
- While businesses reportedly remained closed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they continued as normal elsewhere
ISLAMABAD: A nationwide “shutter-down strike” called by former prime minister Imran Khan’s party drew a mixed response in Pakistan on Sunday, underscoring political polarization in the country two years after a controversial general election.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PIT) opposition party had urged the masses to shut businesses across the country to protest alleged rigging on the second anniversary of the Feb. 8, 2024 general election.
Local media reported a majority of businesses remained closed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, governed by the PTI, while business continued as normal in other provinces as several trade associations distanced themselves from the strike call.
Arab News visited major markets in Islamabad’s G-6, G-9, I-8 and F-6 sectors, as well as commercial hubs in Rawalpindi, which largely remained operational on Sunday, a public holiday when shops, restaurants and malls typically remain open in Pakistan.
“Pakistan’s constitution says people will elect their representatives. But on 8th February 2024, people were barred from exercising their voting right freely,” Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri, the PTI opposition leader in the Senate, said at a protest march near Islamabad’s iconic Faisal Mosque.
Millions of Pakistanis voted for national and provincial candidates during the Feb. 8, 2024 election, which was marred by a nationwide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by the PTI and other opposition parties. The caretaker government at the time and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) both rejected the allegations.
Khan’s PTI candidates contested the Feb. 8 elections as independents after the party was barred from the polls. They won the most seats but fell short of the majority needed to form a government, which was made by a smattering of rival political parties led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. The government insists the polling was conducted transparently and that Khan’s party was not denied a fair chance.
Authorities in the Pakistani capital deployed a heavy police contingent on the main road leading to the Faisal Mosque on Sunday. Despite police presence and the reported arrest of some PTI workers, Jafri led local PTI members and dozens of supporters who chanted slogans against the government at the march.
“We promise we will never forget 8th February,” Jafri said.
The PTI said its strike call was “successful” and shared videos on official social media accounts showing closed shops and markets in various parts of the country.
The government, however, dismissed the protest as “ineffective.”
“The public is fed up with protest politics and has strongly rejected PTI’s call,” Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on X.
“It’s Sunday, yet there is still hustle and bustle.”
Ajmal Baloch, All Pakistan Traders Association president, said they neither support such protest calls, nor prevent individuals from closing shops based on personal political affiliation.
“It’s a call from a political party and we do not close businesses on calls of any political party,” Baloch told Arab News.
“We only give calls of strike on issues related to traders.”
Khan was ousted from power in April 2022 after what is widely believed to be a falling out with the country’s powerful generals. The army denies it interferes in politics. Khan has been in prison since August 2023 and faces a slew of legal challenges that ruled him out of the Feb. 8 general elections and which he says are politically motivated to keep him and his party away from power.
In Jan. 2025, an accountability court convicted Khan and his wife in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust land corruption case, sentencing him to 14 years and her to seven years after finding that the trust was used to acquire land and funds in exchange for alleged favors. The couple denies any wrongdoing.
