In Pakistan, inadequate feed resources and imbalanced conventional feeding practices have been identified as major causes of low productivity resulting into low livestock profitability. Balanced and cost effective feed and feeding system can increase the livestock productivity by 30-40%. Realizing this problem, NARC started efforts to develop livestock feed products, their validation and shaping them into deliverable products. 
In Pakistan, inadequate feed resources and imbalanced conventional feeding practices have been identified as major causes of low productivity resulting into low livestock profitability. Balanced and cost effective feed and feeding system can increase the livestock productivity by 30-40%. Realizing this problem, NARC started efforts to develop livestock feed products, their validation and shaping them into deliverable products. NARC is pioneer in successfully developing and introducing various types of livestock feed products such as PARC cattle, sheep and goat, bull, fattening and camel feeds for different livestock species and production systems. A pilot feed technology unit was established in 1988 and successfully ran for 14 years. The Prime Minister of Pakistan during her visit to NARC in 1989 appreciated the achievements and services of Feed Technology Unit for the farming community and directed to replicate the same technology in Sindh. Feed Development Centre, Nuodero was established in 1996 by PARC, which is providing feed to farmers of whole interior Sindh and Karachi.
PARC Livestock Feeds are research-based products developed as per nutrient requirements of livestock. These are nutritionally balanced, supply all the required nutrients: energy, proteins, fibre, minerals and vitamins and is specially formulated to maximize production on cost affective basis. Nation-wide usage of these feed products strongly demonstrated benefits to the farming community. PARC livestock feeds were produced and supplied to livestock farming community on demand driven basis in Punjab, Sindh, NWPF, Balochistan, AJK, and Northern Areas. Feed was also supplied to Afghanistan through UNDP/FAO and private sector. The farmer should introduce PARC cattle feed starting with small quantity along with the feed already in use. Then gradually increase this feed in a way that ultimately after one week, animals should be completely shifted to PARC cattle feed. Under rural dairy farming system, the animals should be fed @ 1-Kg PARC cattle feed for every 2.5 litre of milk. The animals should be fed @ 1-Kg for every 2 litre of milk kept under the peri urban and commercial production systems. Along with the PARC feed, green fodder and wheat straw should be fed as per practice. The feed technologies were successfully developed, commercialised and resultantly about 40 industrial and farmers feed mills have been established in public and private sector. By using cattle feed, dairy farmers generated Rs: 4000/- to Rs: 5000/- as an additional income per annum per animal. Adoption of this technology on only 2% of the dairy animals can add income of Rs: 1.2 billion per annum.
Key References
Khan, A. G., A. Azim and M. A. Nadeem. (1993). Feed resources and their utilization in Pakistan—A prospective. Progressive Farming 13(1): 44-50.
Yunus, A. W., A. G. Khan, Z.Alam, J. I. Sultan and M. Riaz. (2004). Effect of substituting cottonseed meal with sunflower meal in rations for growing buffalo calves. Asian Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 17(5): 659-662.
