Benefits of ostrich farming highlighted

LAHORE:The Department of Poultry Production of University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS), Lahore, in collaboration with Punjab Livestock and Dairy Development Department organised “Capacity Building Training Workshop of Registered Ostrich Farmers of Punjab” on Ravi Campus in Pattoki on Tuesday.

Livestock and Dairy Development Additional Secretary (Technical) Dr Iqbal Shahid chaired the workshop and sought suggestions, asked about the issues and challenges and technical output from the ostrich farmers for the development of ostrich farming in Punjab. UVAS Pro-Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Masood Rabbani, Department of Poultry Production Chairman Prof Dr Athar Mahmood, Project Director Dr Talha Sajjad Yazdani and a large number of registered ostrich farmers from different districts of Punjab were present. The livestock secretary said that it was direly needed to create awareness among the general public about the nutritional value of ostrich meat for the benefit of human body. He said Livestock Department’s disease diagnostic laboratories and staff were actively working and providing maximum veterinary services for treatment of the birds to the facilitation of the ostrich farming community in 36 different districts of Punjab. He assured that Livestock Department would provide its full support to the farmers for the profitability of ostrich farming community.

Prof Dr Masood Rabbani said that in future it was expected that meat export would open with China which would rapidly boost the ostrich farming in Pakistan and its farming community would get maximum benefits. He said UVAS would impart best training practices to professional staff of Livestock Department for their capacity building. He said UVAS University Diagnostic Lab UDL and Livestock Department diagnostic labs were jointly providing disease diagnostic facilities to stakeholders for their animals and maximum. He said, “We need to explore alternative agriculture products for making ostrich feed formulation to reduce the cost.” He said collective efforts were required to address the issues and challenges.

An open discussion was held and all the farmers put forward various suggestions for the development of ostrich farming in Punjab. They recommended the Livestock Department start health monitoring system especially for those private organisations which import ostrich chicks and sell them in Punjab. They said health experts must recommend their cardiac patients eat ostrich meat regularly because it has less cholesterol.