Pakistan's Poultry and Dairy Future

The numbers already demonstrate the scale of the opportunity.

Pakistan's Economic Survey 2025-26 reports livestock value addition of approximately Rs6.23 trillion in FY2026, with livestock remaining a significant component of agriculture. The government has also identified animal health, genetics, nutrition, disease control, reproductive technologies and private-sector participation as areas requiring further development.

The poultry industry has similarly expanded rapidly. The Economic Survey 2024-25 estimated approximately 2.26 billion poultry birds, 26.7 billion eggs and 2.58 million tonnes of poultry meat for 2024-25. Commercial production has become the principal driver of growth.

These figures are impressive. However, production volume is not the same as competitiveness. A country can produce billions of birds and still struggle with:

• high feed costs
• disease losses
• inconsistent productivity
• poor farm-level data
• weak cold chains
• inadequate traceability
• fragmented veterinary services
• inefficient genetics
• antimicrobial misuse
• inconsistent product quality
• weak processing
• limited export certification
• regulatory fragmentation

Therefore, the next phase cannot be defined solely by expansion. It must be defined by productivity.

The real competition is no longer farm versus farm.

The future competition will be: Pakistan versus global production systems.

A modern poultry or dairy industry is no longer simply:

It is becoming:

This presents Pakistan with both an enormous opportunity and a significant vulnerability.

Our farmers and companies have demonstrated entrepreneurial ability. However, we have yet to establish a national ecosystem that supports them effectively. This ecosystem must connect: government, veterinary services, universities, laboratories, industry, farmers, processors, banks, insurance, exporters, international markets and the public.

The future belongs to countries that can create a cohesive chain of this nature.

The disease question must no longer be treated solely as a veterinary issue. Disease is not merely a veterinary expense; it is an economic variable. One outbreak can impact mortality, feed conversion, milk yield, fertility, hatchability, egg production, medication costs, farmer income, consumer prices, processing capacity, trade, export certification, public confidence and more. Therefore, animal health must be regarded as productive infrastructure.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) has increasingly emphasised investment in animal health as a means of protecting food security, livelihoods, trade and public health. Its new PREVENT Forum brings governments, industry, producer organisations, veterinary professionals and other stakeholders into a structured public-private dialogue focused on disease prevention and vaccination.

Pakistan should not remain a passive observer of this international movement. It should become an active participant.

The most significant hidden asset is Pakistan's private veterinary network. The country already has a substantial private-sector animal-health ecosystem comprising veterinary pharmaceutical companies, vaccine suppliers, distributors, private veterinarians, poultry integrators, dairy farms, diagnostic laboratories, feed companies, nutrition specialists, universities and consultants.

The problem is not a lack of expertise but rather fragmentation.

We possess knowledge in thousands of individual companies, farms, laboratories and professionals but lack sufficient mechanisms to convert this knowledge into national animal health intelligence.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are therefore strategically important.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) defines veterinary PPPs as arrangements in which public and private sectors agree on responsibilities and share resources and risks to achieve common objectives. WOAH identifies such partnerships as a mechanism for strengthening veterinary services including policy development, disease control and large-scale vaccination.

Pakistan should take this concept seriously.

My proposal on behalf of the Pakistan Veterinary Pharmaceuticals Association (PVPA) is to establish a Pakistan Animal Health Intelligence Network.

Imagine if participating poultry and dairy farms, private veterinarians and diagnostic laboratories could anonymously contribute standardised information on:

• disease syndromes
• mortality
• production performance
• vaccination
• laboratory results
• antimicrobial use
• antimicrobial resistance
• unusual disease events
• biosecurity indicators
• regional disease trends

The objective would not be to expose individual farmers but to identify national patterns before they become national crises.

The architecture could be simple:

1. 1Farm
2. 2Private Veterinarian
3. 3Diagnostic Laboratory
4. 4National Animal Health Intelligence Platform
5. 5Provincial / Federal Veterinary Services
6. 6Early Warning / Intervention

This would not replace statutory disease reporting but would strengthen it.

Pakistan's poultry industry has already adopted controlled-environment housing, automation, genetics, sophisticated nutrition and modern management in parts of the sector.

The next leap is data integration.

A modern poultry operation should eventually know in near real time:

• Feed Conversion Ratio
• mortality
• water consumption
• feed intake
• temperature
• humidity
• ventilation
• vaccination status
• disease indicators

The same principle applies to dairy. A modern dairy system should integrate:

• Milk yield
• Fertility
• Somatic cell count
• Mastitis
• Feed efficiency
• Reproductive performance
• Body condition
• Vaccination
• Antimicrobial treatment
• Withdrawal periods
• Genetics

Dairy faces an even greater structural challenge. Pakistan's dairy sector has extraordinary potential but much of its productivity remains constrained by fragmented production, genetics, nutrition, animal health, farm management and milk-quality infrastructure.

The solution is not simply importing more exotic genetics. Genetics without nutrition, reproduction, disease control, housing and management will not produce sustainable productivity. The dairy transformation must therefore focus on:

The objective should not be: How many cows do we have?

It should be: How many litres of quality milk does each productive animal generate over its economically useful lifetime?

That is the productivity question.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is becoming one of the defining challenges for modern animal production. A recent study reviewing bovine mastitis and AMR in Pakistan's dairy sector highlights the importance of antimicrobial stewardship and the need for stronger evidence and management systems.

Recent international reporting has also placed Pakistan's poultry sector under scrutiny regarding antimicrobial use, while highlighting farms that have reduced antibiotic dependence through improved biosecurity and management.

The appropriate industry response is neither denial nor panic. It is science.

We must move from antibiotics as routine insurance to biosecurity, vaccination, diagnostics, management and targeted treatment.

Antibiotics must remain available when genuinely required but their use must increasingly be: indication-based, evidence-based and professionally supervised.

This is not anti-industry; it is the opposite. A poultry or dairy industry that cannot demonstrate responsible antimicrobial stewardship will increasingly face challenges in consumer confidence, regulation and international market access.

The future dairy and poultry industry must become traceable. Traceability should not be viewed as an additional bureaucratic burden; it is infrastructure for market access. The world is moving towards systems in which buyers increasingly want to know:

• Where did this animal originate?
• What disease-control programme was applied?
• What vaccines were used?
• What treatments were administered?
• Were withdrawal periods respected?
• What feed was used?
• Was the product tested?
• Where was it processed?
• Can the supply chain be audited?

Pakistan therefore needs a long-term architecture for:

• Animal identification
• Farm registration
• Veterinary records
• Vaccination records
• Laboratory records
• Veterinary medicine records
• Processing traceability
• Export certification

This is how a domestic industry becomes an export industry.

We should stop measuring success solely by production. I would like to see Pakistan change the national conversation. Instead of celebrating only:

Poultry meat increased by X%

we should measure:

• FCR
• mortality
• production cost/kg
• egg mass
• hatchability
• milk yield/cow
• conception rate
• calving interval
• mastitis incidence
• antimicrobial use
• AMR indicators
• vaccine coverage
• disease incidence
• biosecurity scores

The key difference between growth and development is the focus on export markets.

Pakistan's meat exports have grown significantly but its share of global exports remains small. The Economic Survey 2025-26 identifies disease control, traceability, genetics, cold chain, processing and value addition as central components of the country's export transformation strategy.

The message is clear: the next export opportunity is not simply to produce more but to produce verifiably safe, consistently high-quality products at internationally competitive cost. This requires disease-free compartments, surveillance, traceability, cold chains, accredited laboratories, compliant slaughter and processing and credible veterinary certification.

The same principle applies to poultry and dairy.

Pakistan should consider disease-free production zones rather than waiting for the entire country to achieve identical disease-control status. It can progressively develop:

• Disease-free compartments
• Controlled production zones
• Surveillance-based production clusters
• Export-oriented livestock clusters
• Poultry disease-control zones

These can become platforms for export development. WOAH's current PPP work in South Asia specifically includes strengthening trade-related veterinary competencies, transboundary animal disease control, disease-free zones and compartments. Pakistan should actively engage with this agenda.

The government cannot achieve this alone nor can industry. This requires a fundamentally different relationship between government and the private sector in the next decade.

International organisations such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) can provide standards, technical guidance, international experience and institutional frameworks.

This is the ecosystem Pakistan needs.

For decades animal health has often been treated as an expense incurred after disease appears. This outdated mindset is no longer acceptable. If a farmer spends Rs10 on biosecurity and prevents Rs100 of losses, the Rs10 is not an expense but an investment. The same applies to:

• Vaccination
• Diagnostics
• Genetics
• Nutrition
• Water quality
• Ventilation
• Farm hygiene
• Milk testing
• Cold chain
• Traceability

The economic question should always be: what is the return on prevention?

WOAH's PREVENT Forum is built around this broader idea: vaccination and prevention are strategic investments in food security, livelihoods, trade and economic resilience. Pakistan needs to adopt this investment mindset.

Pakistan requires measurable programmes with defined ownership, deadlines and key performance indicators. For example:

Measurement is essential for effective management.

As Senior Vice Chairman of the Pakistan Veterinary Pharmaceuticals Association, I believe the veterinary pharmaceutical and animal-health industry has a responsibility that extends beyond product sales. Our responsibility is to contribute to a healthier production system by supporting:

• Responsible medicines
• Quality veterinary products
• Vaccination
• Diagnostics
• Biosecurity
• Antimicrobial stewardship
• Pharmacovigilance
• Professional education
• Disease surveillance
• One Health

PVPA should therefore collaborate with Pakistan's Veterinary Authorities, universities, laboratories, producer organisations and international institutions to establish practical public-private mechanisms. The objective should not be institutional prestige but rather animal health and national economic resilience.

Pakistan's population provides a large domestic market, its farmers production capacity, its veterinarians technical expertise, its pharmaceutical and animal-health companies products and distribution, its universities scientific capacity and its geography access to major regional markets. The challenge is to connect these assets into a coherent system. This is an opportunity for Pakistan's next agricultural revolution to transcend simply increasing animal production.

It should produce healthier animals more efficiently with reduced disease, unnecessary antimicrobial use, improved genetics, better data, enhanced traceability and higher-value products.

This is how the poultry and dairy industries can transition from large sectors to becoming globally competitive strategic sectors of Pakistan's economy.

And that is the conversation we should begin now.