Livestock sector needs technology to lift up in Punjab: Dr. Umar Saif

Lahore:  Chairman Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Dr. Umar Saif has said that the technology might improve Punjab’s poultry and livestock sectors by empowering farmers and removing administrative bottlenecks of the system with the help of smart monitoring. Addressing a meeting in his office on Tuesday, he told that the PITB had started a IT-backed five-year Punjab Public Management Reform Program (PPMRP) with the help of World Bank and Punjab Government that aims at  improving transparency, resource management, accountability and access to services. Dr Saif said that a relatively small number of 150 smartphones installed with the “Vet inspect” software had been given to field officers saddled with tasks of monitoring animal health and meat sellers to observe the meat health standards set by the livestock department in 36 districts across the province.

“They feed data into the vet inspect software, which is accessible through dashboard by data analysts, who then make comparison with some indicators: absent staff, medicines not available and unstamped meat sale. We have already built a central data of 1.3 million mobile phone numbers of the farmers. They may receive robocal while common citizens can also make call to our call center to get assistance. The Farmers should be informed of how to improve milk’s shelf life, reasons of its rejection, current rate and artificial insemination”, he added. Describing the importance of technology, Dr. Saif said that the livestock is a backbone of Punjab’s economy that not only provides meat, milk and wool but also employment to a huge population and it contributes approximately 11 percent to the national GDP. “Unfortunately a major part of dairy industry is undocumented while 15-20 percent milk of country’s gross production is wasted in poor transportation and calving. Generally, farmers rely on traditional system of milking and supply chain and most of them are unaware of healthy means of improving productivity of their livestock, however, the modern technology and smartphone can bring many changes into their business” he concluded.