ISLAMABAD: The government under its promotion of breed improvement program allowed the private sector to import 9,583 high producing exotic dairy cows during last fiscal year to enhance dairy produce in the country.
"To improve dairy breed in the country, the government is encouraging artificial insemination (A1) and during 2010-11, 318,768 doses of exotic semen and 4339 embryos were imported", said the official sources in ministry of National Food Security and Research on Saturday.
The sources said the federal government assists the provincial governments in their endeavor to develop the livestock sector which is a provincial subject under the 18th amendment.
In order to promote value addition and processing infrastructure in the country for livestock products, the import of machinery, equipment including meat and dairy, milk processing machinery equipment were also allowed to import at zero tariff.
Elaborating on the steps taken during last fiscal year by the federal government to meet the demand of milk and meat in the country, the sources said sales tax exemption was given to un-cooked poultry meat, processed milk, yogurt, cheese, flavored milk, butter and cream in order to encourage value addition.
Under the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) funded project "Livestock Production and Development for Meat Production", 13,171 fattening operations involving 163,977 large ruminants and 217,701 small ruminants (total 381,678 animals) were also completed.
The sources said under another PSDP funded project "Milk Collection and Dairy Development Program", as many as 207 Milk Group Producers (MPG) with total membership of 5724 farmers in all the four provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan had been established along with installation of 150 milk cooling tank operators.
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