PAKISTAN’S red meat consumption tripled from 11.7 kilograms per person in 2000 to over 32kg in 2016. It is set to go further up to 47kg by 2020 because of two main reasons: higher incomes and a changing lifestyle due to growing urbanisation in the last two decades, enabling people to go for protein-rich food.

No apparent efforts are being made by either public or private sector to meet growing demand for red meat. We are illegally slaughtering female animals at private abattoirs and less-monitored municipal facilities to fill the gap. The practice is depleting our livestock reserves, which currently stand at around 169 million head. Of them, 74m are cows and buffaloes and 95m are sheep and goats. It is feared that if this trend is not checked, the livestock-surplus country may face a shortage of animals in the near future.

In order to maintain a healthy stock of cattle head and sustain the provision of quality meat for domestic consumption and exports, experts and consumer representatives suggest abolishing the official capping of meat prices, which is discouraging investment in the sector.

Farmers say they cannot supply quality meat at the government-notified rates

Consumer Solidarity Forum’s Mohsin Bhatti claims that at least 50 per cent of around 20,000 animals slaughtered in Lahore every day are female. Their illegal slaughter is carried out at homes of butchers, service stations and in villages at night.

Low meat prices make herd owners sell their 12- to 14-month-old animals, both male and female. They should ideally wait until animals are 22 months old, he says. This deprives consumers of healthy meat.

“The sector holds great investment potential, which may bring prosperity to livestock farmers in the countryside provided the artificial price-setting mechanism that is holding it hostage is done away with,” says Dr M Hayat Jaspal, chairman of the Meat Science and Technology Department at the Lahore Veterinary University (UVAS).

He argues market forces will ensure that quality red meat is available at the cheapest rate to consumers just like in the poultry sector, which is free from the official price mechanism. “Whenever governments intervene in any sector through price regimes, they destroy it.”

However, meat exporters apprehend that if the official price mechanism is abolished, the commodity will become dearer and hurt exports that are already on the decline for the last couple of years. “We’re already facing higher production costs due to various reasons. Uncapping meat prices will lead to a hike in local animal markets, thus making export consignments more expensive and uncompetitive in the world,” says Shehzad Aslam Ghauri, a Lahore-based exporter of red meat.

But Dr Jaspal dispels the price hike fears. “If prices play such a big role, then why is the meat export volume on the decline even at the existing low official rates?” He says the price may go up in the short run, but will stabilise after a year. “That’s because by then new investment will improve the supply side and, like in the poultry industry, market forces will regulate prices and ensure a balance between supply and demand.”

Even if new farms are not set up by that time, meat production will double as farmers will use feedlots to fatten up their cattle, which is not feasible at the present price level.

Endorsing these views, Dr Sher Ali of UVAS says that quality meat from fattened animals will help exporters earn at least 25pc more from their existing consignments, which are sent to low-end foreign markets because of poor meat quality. At the current officially notified rates, he says, it is impossible to produce quality meat. “The university itself, despite enjoying certain subsidies, could produce quality beef at Rs550 per kg in its ongoing pilot project while the official rate of beef is around Rs400.”

Haleem Umair, a progressive goat farmer, says the regressive pricing system is preventing him and other players from making large-scale investments in the sector. “Presently, we’ve got only a small consumer base in the form of exporters. The domestic market is practically closed to us because we cannot supply meat products at the officially notified rates, which are a lot less than our production cost. We will think about making further investment only if the government uncaps the prices or guarantees a matching subsidy to offset the negative impact of the current price mechanism.”

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, September 10th, 2018