Director General, Remount Veterinary and Farms Corps, Pakistan Army, Major General Muhammad Tahir and Chairman Pakistan Dairy Development Company, Faisal Farooq, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the up-gradation of military dairy farms and milk processing operations.
Army possesses 21 dairy farms all over the country and two Remount Depots at Mona and Sargodha. It harvests 52,000 acres of land and runs a very productive milking operation with 3,000 buffaloes and 20,000 cows.
Military dairy operations are the largest scale professional farming in Pakistan, which besides providing fresh milk to the Army supplies milk to two Military dairy factories at Renala and Okara.
It may be mentioned here that Dairy Pakistan is a public-private sector partnership chartered by the president and prime minister of Pakistan in consequence to the Dairy Development Strategy designed by the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda).
Dairy Pakistan was created in September 2005 to commercialise the milk business and currently pursuing development of sustainable and replicable models in milk production, procurement, value addition and retailing. Dairy Pakistan offers a wide range of technical expertise, training and funding for development to catalyse commercial and internationally competitive dairy production and marketing models in Pakistan.
Dairy Pakistan is also actively involved in research & promotion of appropriate policy reforms, quality standards and definition of trade & market access issues.
Major General Mohammad Tahir, Director General of Remount Veterinary and Farms expressed the hope that the relationship would be mutually beneficial. The co-operation would help towards expanding army milk production and processing efficiency.
He said that Military farms could play a leadership role in the development of dairy sector by adopting best practices and improving the quantity and quality of product in line with the president's directive of bringing white revolution in the country.
Faisal Farooq, Chairman of Dairy Pakistan also recognised the immense potential of collaborating with army dairy farms to improve large-scale dairy industry of Pakistan.
Military farms provide a unique opportunity to conduct research and develop local low-cost solutions for a low-cost, highly efficient and cost competitive dairy farming system in Pakistan.
Army farms among other things have the best embryo transfer facility in Pakistan. Research & Development conducted at military farms will lead the way in helping small scale farmers to upgrade their dairy operations and invest in higher productivity.
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