The announcement by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz regarding the export of one million animals and the signing of Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with Chinese companies has generated considerable attention in Pakistan’s agricultural and livestock circles. The proposal has been presented as a major economic opportunity capable of increasing foreign exchange earnings, strengthening bilateral trade relations, and opening new international markets for Pakistan’s livestock and meat industry. However, beneath the attractive headlines lies a far more serious and complicated question: Is Pakistan institutionally, genetically, and economically prepared for such a large-scale livestock export initiative?

This is no longer a routine policy initiative; it is a stress test of Pakistan’s entire livestock governance system and its food security architecture.

This is a highly significant and positive initiative, and the vision of the Honourable Chief Minister of Punjab is appreciated for attempting to link Pakistan’s livestock sector with international markets. However, it must be clearly understood that such ambitious initiatives can only succeed if the livestock production system is first strengthened at the ground level. Without functional livestock farms, improved genetics, effective disease control systems, value chain infrastructure, and a production-oriented institutional framework, large-scale export strategies cannot deliver sustainable results in practice.

It is also advisable for the Honourable Chief Minister of Punjab to remain aware of those individuals around her who consistently present a “sab theek hai” (all is well) narrative. This slogan-based optimism has historically masked the real structural weaknesses of Pakistan’s livestock sector. In fact, the repeated reliance on “sab theek hai” reporting culture has contributed significantly to policy blindness and has weakened the sector over time. Sustainable policymaking requires honest reporting of ground realities rather than overly optimistic narratives that distort actual conditions.

Pakistan possesses one of the largest livestock populations in the region.

According to recent livestock estimates, Pakistan has more than 57 million cattle, around 47 million buffaloes, over 87 million goats, and approximately 42 million sheep. The livestock sector contributes nearly 62 percent to agricultural value addition and around 15 percent to the national GDP. More importantly, over 35 million rural people are directly or indirectly associated with livestock-related livelihoods. For millions of landless families and small farmers, livestock is not merely an agricultural activity but their primary economic survival system.

Despite this strategic importance, the livestock sector has remained one of the most neglected areas of public policy for decades. Successive governments have continuously used livestock as a political slogan, but practical reforms, scientific planning, and long-term investment have largely remained absent. This prolonged neglect has now transformed into a structural national vulnerability that directly threatens food security and rural livelihoods.

The most alarming reality is that Pakistan still lacks a comprehensive national genetic improvement program. In developed livestock economies, governments invest heavily in selective breeding, artificial insemination systems, pedigree recording, disease-free breeding centers, and genomic research to continuously improve milk and meat productivity. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s livestock productivity per animal remains significantly lower compared to international standards. Average milk production of many local dairy animals in Pakistan remains between 6 to 8 liters per day, whereas high genetic dairy breeds in developed countries frequently produce 25 to 40 liters daily under scientific management systems. This massive productivity gap reflects decades of policy failure, weak veterinary extension services, and the absence of serious genetic planning.

Despite the continuous production of highly qualified PhD scholars in almost every discipline of veterinary sciences and animal husbandry across Pakistan’s universities, the livestock sector remains structurally stagnant and scientifically under-implemented. Each year, institutions produce specialized researchers in genetics, reproduction, nutrition, epidemiology, and pathology, yet the national livestock system shows minimal translation of this academic capacity into field-level transformation. This raises a fundamental and uncomfortable question: why does a sector with growing intellectual capital remain scientifically inactive in terms of national program development?

The answer lies in a systemic failure rather than an individual one. There is a persistent disconnect between academia, policy-making institutions, and field implementation agencies. Research output is largely confined to academic publications and theses, while livestock departments remain weakly linked to evidence-based decision-making.

Fragmented governance, lack of integrated national research agenda, and weak accountability mechanisms have collectively prevented the emergence of a unified science-to-policy pipeline.

Another key limitation is the weak Artificial Insemination (AI) system, which continues to block genetic improvement in Pakistan. The most dangerous aspect is that many institutions in the country are now offering only four-month, six-month, or less-than-one-year training programs for Artificial Insemination. As a result, undertrained and unskilled individuals are entering this highly technical and sensitive field. This has severely compromised the quality and effectiveness of AI services. Poor coverage, lack of properly trained technicians, inconsistent semen quality, and weak cold-chain logistics have resulted in failure to achieve the desired genetic improvement outcomes. Consequently, instead of advancing genetic productivity, the system is producing uneven and unreliable results across rural Pakistan.

Another major and highly alarming constraint is the severe shortage of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) vaccines, which represents a fundamental structural weakness of Pakistan’s livestock health system. Countries such as India, Iran, China, and Turkey established their own FMD vaccine production facilities as early as the 1970s and 1980s, achieving self-reliance in disease control decades ago. Unfortunately, at that time, Pakistan’s policymakers remained largely inactive in this critical sector, resulting in long-term dependency and systemic vulnerability.

Today, Pakistan requires approximately 300 million vaccine doses annually to effectively control FMD through systematic vaccination. However, the country is able to secure only around 20 million doses from all available sources, including imports. This massive gap has left the entire livestock sector continuously exposed to disease outbreaks, reduced productivity, and recurring economic losses. The most important question now is: who is responsible for this persistent failure? Who is accountable for this long-standing policy neglect and systemic inefficiency? Pakistani dairy and livestock farmers are suffering annual losses exceeding 300 billion rupees due to this preventable disease burden. This is not merely a technical gap; it is a serious governance and accountability failure that demands urgent national attention.

Furthermore, Pakistan’s FMD control efforts remain fragmented, relying on intermittent campaigns rather than a sustained national vaccination strategy.

One of the most alarming and largely ignored dimensions of Pakistan’s livestock crisis is the ongoing mass slaughter of productive female animals in the Karachi Landhi Cattle Colony, one of the largest livestock settlements in Asia. This is not merely a local management issue but a national biological and economic emergency. The situation reflects deep regulatory failure, absence of traceability systems, and lack of coordinated oversight between provincial and federal authorities. The continuous and largely undocumented slaughter of high-genetic-value animals and newborn calves is silently eroding Pakistan’s breeding potential and dairy productivity base. If this trend continues unchecked, it will result in irreversible genetic losses and long-term damage to the national livestock economy. It is therefore an urgent alarm signal for both the Federal Government and the Government of Sindh to intervene through strict regulatory enforcement, digital livestock tracking systems, and a comprehensive animal protection framework.

In conclusion, if Pakistan proceeds with large-scale livestock exports without first correcting its structural weaknesses in genetics, disease control, productivity, and institutional coordination, this policy may turn into a long-term national error rather than an economic opportunity. A country already facing food insecurity, rising inflation, declining purchasing power, and weak rural productivity cannot afford to reduce its core livestock asset base without a scientifically validated replacement and expansion strategy.

Livestock export is not a development strategy in itself; it is only a derivative outcome of a well-developed, high-productivity, disease-controlled, and genetically improved system. Without this foundation, exports will not represent strength—they will represent depletion.

The most critical concern is that Pakistan currently lacks a synchronized national livestock transformation framework where breeding, genetics, disease control, feed efficiency, and value addition operate under one integrated vision. In the absence of such a system, any large-scale export initiative risks becoming extractive rather than productive, accelerating internal shortages while temporarily improving external earnings. This creates a dangerous illusion of economic gain while silently eroding the country’s food security base.

It must also be clearly understood that livestock is not merely an economic commodity; it is a strategic biological asset that directly determines national nutrition, rural employment, and inflation stability. Once productive animals are removed from the system without structured replenishment, the recovery cycle is extremely slow, often taking years if not decades. In developing countries like Pakistan, where genetic progress is already slow and disease pressures are high, such depletion can have irreversible consequences.

Another alarming dimension is that policy-making in the livestock sector has historically remained reactive rather than scientific. Decisions are often driven by short-term economic optics rather than long-term biological sustainability. This approach not only weakens policy credibility but also creates repeated cycles of crisis management instead of sustainable growth.

Equally important is the absence of institutional accountability. Despite the existence of veterinary universities, research centers, and livestock departments, there is no unified mechanism to evaluate why decades of research output, trained manpower, and policy recommendations have failed to translate into measurable national improvement. This accountability gap is one of the most critical but least addressed failures of the sector.

Therefore, Pakistan must urgently reframe its livestock strategy from export-oriented extraction to productivity-led transformation. This includes strengthening genetic improvement programs, scaling up artificial insemination with modern genomic tools, establishing local vaccine production capacity, integrating research institutions with policy departments, and investing heavily in value-added dairy and meat processing industries.

In conclusion, the real question is not whether Pakistan should export livestock, but whether Pakistan has first developed the biological, institutional, and scientific capacity to sustain such exports without damaging its internal food security. Without addressing these foundational gaps, any large-scale export initiative risks becoming a short-term gain with long-term national cost.

The future of Pakistan’s livestock sector depends not on how much it exports, but on how intelligently it produces, improves, and sustains its animal resources.

Dr Alamdar Hussain Malik
Advisor, Veterinary Sciences, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Swat
Former : Secretary/Registrar, Pakistan Veterinary Medical Council