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Published 25 Apr, 2024 11:06am

Lack of profits forcing decline for poultry industry in KP

After witnessing a brief boom, poultry farming is seeing a decline in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Jalil, a poultry farmer, said that at one time more than 1.6 million people were involved in the poultry business, which has now reduced to half because of the lack of profit, farmers have withdrawn their capital and invested in other businesses.

The chicken project was good during the previous PTI regime, Jalil said, but the project did not benefit poultry farming in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa because the poultry farming officials were neglected in the project.

Jalil said that the rate of chick, chicken feed and chicken is also determined from Punjab, and the rate in KP is 50 rupees per kg more than the rates there.

He said that since everything including medicines used in farming depends on Punjab, the work of chicken farming in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been reduced to half. Rather, this sector can also take the form of an industry.

Musharraf Khan, who has been working in poultry for the past two decades, said that earlier, due to the cheapness of chicks and feed, people in the province used to do local farming in small areas in their homes and fields, which has now almost disappeared due to inflation.

Former Director General Livestock Alamzeb Mohmand told Aaj News that there are various reasons for the decline of poultry farming in our province, among which the ignorance of local farmers with modern scientific methods and lack of private sector partnership are the top.

Alamzeb says that he has resumed work on 13 hundred poultry farms destroyed by terrorism in the former tribal districts of Khyber, Bajaur and Mohmand, of which 105 have been completed, while 71 poultry farms out of 250 destroyed farms in other areas have been restored.

The former DG Livestock said that there were many other restrictions, including the determination of poultry prices, but the Livestock Department is trying to introduce modern scientific methods to poultry farming. Major poultry farms are being built which will have 20 thousand chickens.

He said that the number of inactive poultry farms in the province due to various reasons is 250, in which 71 have been rebuilt, while under another project, 30 new large poultry farms with a capacity of 20,000 chickens have been constructed in the planned districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Poultry farms are being built.

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