Lahore: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority SMEDA has facilitated Rs.400 millions investment in the current year by establishing 13 modern dairy farms in the private sector, which are running successfully under “‘Environmentally Controlled Shed Systems’.
It was revealed at a media interaction arranged by SMEDA today with Mrs. Karin Eriksson, Chairperson, Breeding committee of the cooperative AI stat and breeding organization, ‘Skane Semin” from Sweden, Dr. Ing. Reinoud van Gent, Director Veepro Holland. Practitioner Dairy cattle from Netherlands and Roelof van den Berg, Chairman, Export Net NV Dutch Cattle Exporters Organization, Netherlands.
CEO SMEDA Yousaf Naseem Khokhar welcomed the guests and apprised them about SMEDA’s contribution in dairy development.
These international dairy experts expressed immense satisfaction over operation of SMEDA developed dairy farms. They certified that modern technologies with the cows imported from Sweden were being looked after as per international standards in these farms.
“We have visited about five model dairy farms around Lahore and are surprised to see that Swedish cows staying in Pakistan were giving results even better then seen in Sweden, they said and hoped that the milk production on these farms could be increased further by giving more training to the farm management team. They suggested SMEDA to plan training programs for dairy farmers and the workers employed in modern dairy farms to work more efficiently in line with Climate Controlled Shed System.
The experts told that during their three day stay at Lahore they had met over 100 dairy farmers and shared their knowledge and experience at a seminar organized by SMEDA other day at Phoolnagar. They were impressed of the high interest expressed by local farmers to learn modern knowledge of this industry.
Roelof van den Berg, Chairman, Export Net NV Dutch Cattle Exporters Organization, Netherlands said that expansion of environmentally controlled shed systems in Pakistan is an indicator of dairy industry development. He observed that Pakistan would be able to make breakthrough in the production of processed milk in the coming years.
Khurram Khan, GM-Central support, SMEDA also spoke on this occasion. He disclosed that 13 model farms had been established in prominent districts of Punjab such as Lahore, Kasur, Jhelum, Chakwal, Chiniot and Gujrat.
These farms are developed on Modern concept of ‘Environmentally Controlled Shed Systems’ and comprise of Cows imported from Sweden with average milk production capacity of 30 litres/ day in contrast to local cows with avg. 11 litres/ day.
Earlier, Yousaf Naseem Khokhar, CEO SMEDA, in a separate meeting with the visiting diary experts, said that Pakistan, a country of 180 million inhabitants is the 4th largest milk producer in world and the sector provides immense opportunity for new investors to reap benefits of the growing market. He informed that SMEDA had facilitated approximately Rs.1000 million investment by establishing new dairy farms as well as upgradation of some older farms.