Not a Load of Bull: Acumen Fund Makes its First Livestock Investment

“This looks just like South Jersey!” In true Acumen fashion, I had an “Aha” moment driving through rural Punjab on the way to see Acumen Pakistan’s newest investment, Jassar Farms. Located two and a half hours outside Lahore in Narowal, the region is surrounded on three sides by India and is only three kilometers from the border. So why did it look like South Jersey? Punjab is the breadbasket of Pakistan with a beautiful sea of green fields on both sides. As we drove deeper into the heart of Punjab, we passed fields of rice and wheat and sugar cane, all sporadically peppered with brick kilns. Even at the farm itself, spread across 250 acres of land, there were fields of sorghum, alfalfa, and corn, all being grown to process into livestock feed at the farm. At the farm, I met up with Shehzad Iqbal, social entrepreneur and CEO of Jassar Farms who had a thing or two to share about dairy farming in Pakistan and the social impact of this new line of business. Jassar Farms is a corporate dairy farming business focused on dairy and breed improvement of poor livestock farmers aiming to increase milk productivity. Here are a few interesting facts about dairy farming in Pakistan:

• Pakistan is the 5th largest producer of milk worldwide, yet one cow has the productivity level of only 1/5th of a Western cow.
• On average, the milk production of one cow is approximately 1,800 liters of milk per year.
• As a comparison, one western cow has a milk yield in the range of 8000 – 10000 liters per year.
• In the normal 9-10 year lifespan of a cow, she can give birth 9 times in her lifecycle and is lactating 270 - 305 days per year.
• The milk producing livestock in Pakistan is divided almost equally between buffalo and cow. Pakistan is among the top producers of buffalo milk globally but herds most commonly suffer from poor farm care, poor quality feed and lack breed improvement. While buffalo breed improvement could reap great benefits, breed enhancement through artificial insemination has been less studied in buffalos as compared to cows, worldwide.
• Through experiments in artificial insemination and other methods of livestock breed enhancement, there is strong potential to improve the gene pool of cattle offspring.
• If a cow is on average producing 1,800 liters of milk per year and it is artificially inseminated with a bull who’s mother and grandmother averaged, were producing for example, 10,000 liters of milk per year, then the cow’s female offspring will have the genetic potential to produce the average of the two (10,000 + 1,800)/2 = 5,900) and thereby slowly improve the milk production capability generationally.

This is where Shahzad really explained the social impact of the business idea. In the Pakistan agriculture sector, over 75% of livestock owners are poor farmers owning less than four cows.

The cost of importing high quality bull semen doses costs between $75-$100 and is essentially unaffordable to rural, dairy farmers who own 2-5 cows per household. Shahzad gave the example of a local farmer, Mohammad Butta, who owns two cows and has a family of five. Mohammad milks the cows in the morning and then sets off to work his fields. With a family of five and a household income of $75 per month, he cannot afford the high cost of imported semen dosages. So by producing semen doses locally and making it affordable to the rural livestock farmer, Jassar Farms has the potential to increase incomes of farmers from increased milk yields.

This is the first Acumen Fund investment in agriculture and specifically in the livestock and diary space and it will be interesting to see the value and impact this new business innovation may yield.