MILKING US DRY: PAKISTAN’S DAIRY SECTOR IN CRISIS (#PEASANTSRISEUP) 

For more than a decade, corporates have been advancing their control over Pakistan’s livestock and dairy sector which as of 2016 data, contributes to approximately 56% of the country’s agriculture sector GDP.
Trade agencies like the AUSAID and USAID have pledged their guidance and support for various dairy development programs, breed improvement programs and livestock management programs. While multinational companies like Nestle and Engro hold the monopoly in packaged milk products and have been campaigning against fresh milk, its biggest competitor is based in the informal retail market. While 93% of the consumers still buy fresh/raw milk, the Punjab Food Authority will strictly be implementing the Milk Pasteurization Law by 2022. Under this law, the sale of raw milk will be a criminal offence. But this concern to provide consumers with pure unadulterated or tested milk seems to be geared towards benefiting dairy corporations at the expense of the informal milk sector largely in the hands of small and landless farmers (as producers) and a very wide network of milk vendors spread across the country both in rural and urban areas.
These multinationals have also been employing the rhetoric of Creating Shared Value (CSV) by training farmers, carrying out capacity building at the household and community level and claims to empower rural women, while also introducing expensive, high-tech equipment in the sector and attracting sizeable foreign and local investments. By doing so, these corporations are effectively ousting small producers out of the highly competitive market.

This episode is co-presented by PAN Asia Pacific – PANAP, Roots For Equity and Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT)