After 14-year gap, Pakistan plans census of livestock population

KARACHI: After relying on estimates for more than 14 years, Pakistan is going to carry out a census of its livestock this year, officials have confirmed. 
Pakistan’s economy significantly relies on agricultural production, which in the previous fiscal year contributed 19 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), according to the finance ministry’s Economic Survey 2020-21. Livestock is its largest subsector having a 60 percent share in agriculture value addition.
More than 8 million rural families are engaged in livestock production and derive some 35-40 percent of their income from it. Gross value addition of livestock was Rs1.5 trillion in the fiscal year 2020-21.
Despite this huge contribution, no livestock census has been carried out since 2006.
“Pakistan Statistic Bureau has plans to conduct integrated census for Agriculture and Livestock during financial year 2021-22,” the Ministry of National Food Security and Research (MNFSR) has told Arab News.
While the Economic Survey 2020-21 recorded 51.5 million cattle, 42.4 million buffaloes, 80.3 million goats, 5.6 million donkeys, 400,000 horses and 200,000 mules, the figures are estimates based on the 1996-2006 inter-census growth rate which, experts argue, does not represent the country’s actual animal population growth. 
“No census has been conducted after 2006 but the estimates are being made while sitting in offices. That has no value,” Talat Naseer Pasha, vice chancellor of the University of Education, a public research university in Lahore, told Arab News.
For Dr. Jasir Aftab, a veterinary and husbandry analyst, policy making in the absence of actual data may be inaccurate and does not allow the sector to realize its growth and export potential.
“Due to lack of actual data the policy making and allocations for the animal related project could not be made properly,” he said. “That is why the country still could not harness the full potential of the country’s livestock.”