By Sardar Khan Niazi

Pakistan’s livestock economy has long presented a paradox: the country possesses an enormous animal resource, yet has struggled to convert it into comparable economic value. The government’s latest plan to expand livestock exports through specialized farms, high-yield breeds and corporate restructuring is therefore significant. But its success will depend less on the scale of the ambition than on whether policymakers address the structural weaknesses that have kept the sector underperforming. For years, livestock policy has tended to focus on numbers — herd sizes, milk production and, periodically, export targets. Yet a large livestock population is not in itself an export advantage. What matters is productivity, animal health, quality control, traceability and the ability to supply international markets consistently. On these measures, Pakistan still has considerable ground to cover. The emphasis on specialized farms and improved breeds is consequently justified, but breeding alone cannot deliver the transformation being sought. Better genetics have to be accompanied by better feed, veterinary services, disease surveillance and farm management. High-yield animals require adequate nutrition and care; otherwise, the expected gains in productivity will remain largely theoretical. There is also a danger in viewing corporate restructuring as a solution in itself. Greater private investment could bring capital, technology and managerial expertise into a fragmented sector. But livestock farming remains an important source of rural income, particularly for smallholders. A model based exclusively on large commercial farms could leave these producers further outside formal markets. The better objective would be integration rather than displacement. Small farmers should be linked to organized value chains through producer groups, collection centers, contract arrangements and access to quality breeding and veterinary services. This would allow private companies to achieve scale while enabling rural households to participate in the benefits of an expanding export economy. More importantly, Pakistan needs to move beyond the idea that livestock exports necessarily mean shipping live animals abroad. The greater opportunity lies in adding value before export. Processed meat, dairy products, leather and other livestock-derived goods can generate considerably more economic activity than the export of raw animals or unprocessed commodities. Developing these industries would also create jobs in processing, logistics, packaging, cold storage and quality assurance. But international markets impose standards that cannot be wished away. Food safety, animal traceability, disease control, hygienic slaughtering and internationally accepted certification are prerequisites for sustained access to lucrative markets. A single disease outbreak or failure to meet importing countries’ sanitary requirements can undermine years of market development. This is where the state’s role becomes crucial. Government cannot manufacture export competitiveness through announcements or incentives. It must build the institutional infrastructure that makes competitiveness possible. That means strengthening veterinary and diagnostic services, maintaining credible disease-surveillance systems, improving laboratories and certification, and ensuring that exporters can move products through ports and border crossings efficiently. The environmental cost of expansion also deserves greater attention. Pakistan faces growing pressures on water, land and feed resources. An export strategy based simply on increasing animal numbers could intensify those pressures. The objective should instead be to produce more from fewer and healthier animals, while encouraging efficient feeding, climate-resilient breeds and improved management of livestock waste. Nor should export targets become an end in themselves. Policymakers would be better served by establishing measurable benchmarks for productivity, animal health, processing capacity, certification and market access. If these foundations improve, export growth should follow. If they do not, ambitious targets will merely produce another round of official statistics without a durable change in the underlying economy. The livestock sector has heard promises of transformation before. What it needs now is not another policy slogan but continuity, investment and institutional discipline. Pakistan does not need to discover a new resource to expand its livestock exports. It needs to extract greater value from the resource it already possesses. That will require healthier animals, more productive farmers, stronger institutions and a value chain capable of meeting the exacting demands of global markets. The real measure of the government’s initiative, therefore, will not be how many animals Pakistan exports, but how much prosperity it can create from each one.