The province is densely populated and has 89 million inhabitants. About 40 percent lation of the province is employed in agriculture sector. More than 32 percent of the popu-lation lives in the urban areas. The total length of metalled roads is 42,307 kilometres. The literacy rate is about 40 percent which is highest as compared to the other provinces of Pakistan (PAKISTAN CENSUS ORGANIZATION, 2004).
The province of Punjab has eight administrative divisions which are Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Bhawalpur, Rawalpindi, DG Khan, Gujranwalla and Sargodha. It has 34 adminis-trative districts, 111 tehsiles, 341 markaz (centres) and 2700 union councils (local coun-cils), 24770 villages and 218 urban areas spread over an area of 205,345 square kilometres (AHMAD et al., 2000).
The Punjab province owns 20.60 million hectares of land with 77 percent of the cultivated area as irrigated and 23 percent as rain fed. The over all cultivated area of Punjab accounts for more than the 60 percent of the country’s cultivated area. The province has a variety of agricultural production system ranging from mountainous, irrigated plains, rain fed pla-teaus and deserts. This diversity in the agro-climatic conditions provides prosperous op-portunities for growing arable crops i.e. cereal crops, fibre, fodder crops and orchards etc.
(AGRICULTURE STATISTICS OF PAKISTAN, 2005).
2 SWOG: Dairy strategic working group was organized under the Government of Pakistan with Ministry of Industries and production in cooperation with USAID (United States Agency for International De-velopment), PISDC (Pakistan Initiative of Strategic Development and Competitiveness Program) pro-gram 2004. One public private partnership company was established in 2005 to work on the dairy de-velopment task under the name of Pakistan Dairy Company.
Punjab plays an important role in the national agriculture production due to its well devel-oped canal irrigation system and the availability of good quality sweet ground water. The ground water is used for irrigation at the time of shortage of water. In early 1990s, Punjab produced about seventy percent of the country’s wheat, 80 percent of the cotton, 50 per-cent of the sugar cane and 50 perper-cent of the rice. The contribution of milk production is about seventy percent due to higher number of milk animals raised in Punjab (AGRI-CULTURE STATISTICS OF PAKISTAN, 2005).
Table 2: The share of provinces in milk production
Pakistan 46.9 29.3 100
Source: Derived from Agriculture Statistics of Pakistan 2005 and FAO year book 2005.
Majority of farms are small with a land holding of less than 5 hectares and account for 85 percent of the total farming community. The cropping intensity is 145 percent. There are very few farms (15 percent only) that own more than 5 hectares land (table 3).
The 56 percent of the total cultivated area in Punjab is irrigated by canals and 42 percent through tube wells. Total irrigated area is 6.56 million hectares (KHAN et al., 2000).
Table 3: Geographical data of Punjab
Geographical area million hectares 20.63
Cultivated area million hectares 16
Cropping intensity percent 145
Total number of farms million 3.9
Average farm landholding hectare 2.91
Source: Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan. Agriculture Census 2000.
Table 4: Land holding
Up to 2 hectares 56
From 2 to 5 hectares 29
5 and above hectares 15
Percent
Source: Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan. Agriculture Census 2000.
Table 5 : Irrigated area
Source: Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan. Agriculture Census 2000.
The farm structure in Punjab is classified into 10 different classes from a farm size of less than 0.5 hectare to above 60 hectares. A large number of farms have landholding less than 2 hectares and account for 56 percent of the total number of farms and own a very small proportion of land which is only 16 percent of the total land area. Only 15 percent of the farms own more than 5 hectares of land and own more than 53 percent of the total land area in the province (FEDERAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS, PAKISTAN, 2000).
Table 6: Farm structure in Pakistani Punjab
Farm size ha
Under 0.5 703,638 18% 201,112 2%
0.5 to under 1 617,265 16% 459,408 4%
1 to under 2 844,219 22% 1,166,753 10%
2 to under 3 597,863 15% 1,403,901 12%
3 to under 5 536,361 14% 2,081,497 19%
5 to 10 368,362 10% 2,422,326 22%
10 to 20 149,018 4% 1,858,563 17%
20 to under 40 36,696 1% 909,254 8%
40 to under 60 5,712 0.14% 263,095 2%
60 and above 4,932 0.12% 469,257 4%
Total 3,864,070 100% 11,235,161 100%
Number of farms Farms share Total land area Share of land
nos % ha. %
Source: Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan. Agriculture Census 2000.
The Punjab province has four distinct climatic seasons which are;
a) Winter season (moderate widespread rainfall) – from December to February.
b) Spring season (moderate) - March -April.
c) Summer season (extremely hot and dry)-May and June which is very hot and humid, scattered rainfall – from July to September.
d) Autumn season (moderate cold and dry) – from October to November.
The annual rainfall in Pakistani Punjab varies from 150 mm in the south arid regions, 620 mm in central semi-arid Punjab to 1150 mm in northern sub-mountainous regions. The seasonal distribution of rainfall is strongly influenced by monsoon, which starts in June and results to more than seventy per cent of the rainfall until September. Winter rains take place during December to March and are more wide-spread. The quantity and distribution of rainfall is normally insufficient for crop requirements in most areas.
The agroecological zones in Punjab are classified into four broad categories which are ex-plained on the basis of crops cultivated, amount of rainfall and other sources of irrigation (PARC, 1987) (figure 2).
Figure 1: Agroecological zones in Punjab3
3
Source: Pakistan Agricultural Research Council. 1980.
The agriculture production in Punjab is significantly dependent on irrigation water re-source that comes from the rivers and distributed through canals and water channels down to the fields. The shortage in canal water is compensated by increased use of ground water through tube wells. Tube-well irrigation covers about 10 million hectares of land in Pun-jab (PAKISTAN. AGRICULTURE CENSUS, 2000) (see annex 4 for details).
The agriculture production in the Punjab province is classified into four major cropping patterns on the basis of variations in agro-climatic conditions. These production patterns are: (a) cotton-wheat (b) rice-wheat (c) mixed cropping and (d) rain-fed; which corre-sponds to the Southern, North-Eastern, Central and Northern parts of the province, respec-tively (AKHTAR et al., 1992).
The major cropping patterns are:-
a) Cotton-wheat cropping pattern: The cotton crop is grown after the wheat crop and is mostly practiced in southern Punjab. This region is not well developed for dairy production. The population of local cows is quite higher but their milk yield is quite low. The share of milk production is about 20 percent to the Punjab’s production.
b) Rice–wheat cropping pattern: The rice crop is grown in rotation with wheat crop.
This is mostly dominated in canal irrigated region which is north eastern part of the Punjab. The region has more number of dairy animals and contributes up to 30 per-cent in Punjab’s production.
c) Mixed cropping pattern: The crops of rice and cotton are sown in rotation with ma-jor crop of wheat. This cropping pattern is practiced more in the central and eastern part of the irrigated region of the province. This region is an important dairy produc-tion area in Punjab. The contribuproduc-tion of milk is approximately 40 percent in the total Punjab’s production.
d) Rain-fed: Northern part of Punjab especially the foot hill region (potohar) where agriculture is fully dependent on rainfall. The coarse grains mainly wheat and barley are grown in winter and maize, fodder sorghum are grown in summer. The cow pro-ductivity is lower. The contribution in milk production is about 10 percent which is lowest as compared to other regions in Punjab.
The cropping pattern in Pakistani Punjab is dominated by wheat cultivation which is a ma-jor staple food. Wheat is grown on 41 percent of the total cropped area followed by cot-ton, fodder crops and paddy cultivation. The large area under fodder crops shows the im-portance of dairy and livestock in the Punjab province (table 7).
Table 7: Percent of land used by different crops in Pakistani Punjab
Source: Federal Bureau of Statistics, Pakistan (2003-04).
2.2.2 Milk production situation in Punjab
The province of Punjab is chosen for this study due to its dominance in milk production with 20 million tonnes. It contributes seventy percent to the total milk produced in the country. The milk production of Punjab is almost 1.5 times higher than New Zealand and 2 times higher than The Netherlands (FAO STAT, 2005). For dairy development perspec-tives, the province of Punjab is better off as compared to other provinces in the country due to substantial number of dairy animals and presence of major milk processing facili-ties (FAO, 2005; AGRICULTURE STATISTICS OF PAKISATAN, 2003-04).
Milk is an important food component in Punjab. Milk production is centuries old profes-sion of rural communities to raise milk animals. The rural people are used to drink milk together with wheat bread (Chapatti) that provides two third of the daily calories of the body requirement. The agriculture production systems in Punjab favour the milk produc-tion in the province. The dairy animals are raised by the farm households as a supplement activity on the farm due to availability of crop residues and by products of main crops that are used as roughages to feed the animals (ALLF, 1997; ZAFAR, 1985; CHEEMA, 1992).
The total population of buffaloes and cattle is 11.28 and 7.45 million heads respectively in Punjab (table 8). This total population includes all milking animals, dry animals, heifers, male and female calves and bulls. More than 95 percent of the cows and buffaloes are kept in rural areas. Only 5 percent of the milk animals are kept in the urban areas on peri-urban farms mainly in the cattle colonies. The cattle include all breeds of cows which are non-descript local cows; Sahiwal cows and crossbred cows. The population of cows and
buffa-loes is spread all over the Punjab province, but the dominance of buffalo is seen often along the river belts (AHMAD et al., 2000).
Table 8: Punjab cattle and buffalo population 2000
Rural no 10,787,621 326,367 1,017,263 5,892,382 7,236,012
Urban no 501,626 19,676 75,625 124,263 219,564
Total no 11,289,247 346,043 1,092,888 6,016,645 7,455,576
other cows
Total cows Buffaloes Sahiwal cows Crossbred cows Local breed /
Source: Punjab Livestock Census, 2000.
The buffalo population is more concentrated in upper and eastern part of the Punjab. The over all 86 percent of the total buffalo population is concentrated in 23 districts (see figure 4). The remaining 13.6 percent population exists in eleven districts and one desert region of Cholistan. The eight districts show highest preference of buffalo over cattle. The ratio of these districts in favour of buffaloes against one cow was almost 3 to 1. These prefer-ence patterns exist even in crossbred dominated districts of Sialkot 56 percent, Gujran-wala 49 percent, Sargodha 46 percent, Mandi Bahuddin 43 percent, etc (AHMAD et al., 2000).
All over Punjab, the buffalo production system is found to be similar (both in buffalo and cattle dominant regions) indicating that they are raised by the farmers in the same manner and for the same purposes and objectives. These similarities are obvious from their distri-bution comparisons. The existing buffalo production system adopted by livestock owners is solely oriented towards female buffalo as a milking animal.
In all districts buffalo shows more milk production ability than cows, even in districts with higher crossbred cows population .The crossbred cow population varies from 0.2 percent to 56 percent of the total cattle. The highest percentage of crossbred cows is found in Sialkot, Gujranwala and Sargodha district with 56 percent, 49.2 percent, and 46.4 per-cent of the total cattle population respectively (AHMAD et al., 2000).
Significant differences exist in dairy production under irrigated and non-irrigated-regions (rain fed regions) due to availability of feeding resources. Generally under irrigated region the animals are fed with the green fodder and crop residues while in non irrigated regions the animals are fed with crop stubbles and through grazing on fellow lands. The propor-tions of availability of feed resources are dependent upon geography, season and land holding (AHMAD et al., 2000).
Historically milk is produced along the river belts in Punjab. Buffalo population is more dominant in areas around the river belts that accounts for the reason that one of the buf-falo breed (Nilli-Ravi) was named after the name of river Ravi that crosses both parts of Punjab i.e. India and Pakistan. The figure 2 shows the areas dominated by buffalo popula-tion compared to cows are mainly Lahore, Sheikhupura and Faisalabad.
Figure 2: Map of Punjab province with cows and buffaloes dominance
Source: Punjab Livestock Census 2002.