At a seminar organised by Big Bird to commemorate its 20 years association with the global poultry giant, Hubbard, pioneer of poultry in Pakistan, Dr Yaqoob Bhatti revealed that the value of poultry infrastructure exceeds 300 billion rupees (PKR) and annual turnover of commercial poultry is PKR40 billion.

The News reports Dr Bhatti saying that, with 105 hatcheries, the annual broiler chick production is 820 million. He added that the commercial egg production is 8.690 billion per annum in addition to 3.742 million production of rural eggs.

Pakistan Poultry Association former chairman, Abdul Basit, said that poultry is the cheapest source of animal protein not only in Pakistan, but the world over. The average daily animal protein consumption in Pakistan is only 17g per capita, while the average minimum requirement is 27g, he said.

There is a dire need to increase poultry production in the country that has largely grown without helpful government policies or facilitation, said Mr Basit. The industry, for instance, has since long been demanding the government to disallow poultry farm clusters through a law as chicken farms at least 1.5km apart to reduce the risk of spread of diseases among various poultry flocks, he said.

He said his concern has to relocate its very large chicken farms each time when place was surrounded with many other farms too close to his farms. He said he has shifted his major high quality grand parent farms to Thar deserts. Dr Mustafa Kamal said that the consumption of mutton has declined rapidly, while that of beef and poultry has increased.

The share of poultry meat increased from 16.4 per cent to 24.3 per cent, he said, adding that the consumption of mutton declined from 0.649 million tons to 0.616 million tons, showing a fall of 20 per cent in total meat consumption share.

Still, he said, Pakistan as a meat-eating country produces around 50 per cent broiler chickens of those produced in India, which has seven times human population and has a good chance to develop grand parent breeding operations, which has an existing capacity of producing eight million parent stocks for domestic as well as for export purposes.

Oliver Behaghel of Hubbard France said that Pakistani poultry producers improved efficiencies rapidly during the last 20 year, which has helped it control the cost. Maturing time of a broiler has reduced during this period from four days to 46 days and from 38 days to 40 days, he said.

The News reports that the weight gain of the chick at the time of maturity has increased from 1.5-1.7kg to 1.9 to 2kg and feed consumption by the time of maturity has declined from 2.2-2.5kg to 1.7-1.9kg.

He concluded: "Pakistan is gradually reaching global and Hubbard standards in chicken health, morality and efficiency in productive processes."