Punjab launches Livestock Card Phase II, with Rs16.2 billion in interest-free loans and Rs27,000 per animal for farmers

LAHORE: The second phase of Punjab’s Livestock Card is under way. Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz opened it in Lahore on Wednesday by swiping a card at a ceremony where the Livestock Department also screened a short documentary on its work — a launch built as much on the first phase’s numbers as on the new money.

Phase II carries Rs16.2 billion in interest-free credit. An eligible farmer can draw up to Rs27,000 per animal and spend it on the inputs that decide whether an animal thrives or merely survives: wanda, silage and mineral mixtures. The farmer repays only the principal; the provincial government picks up the interest. A quarter of the approved amount can be taken out as cash from an ATM, a small detail that matters on a farm, where not every expense comes with a card machine.

Feed, tagging and vaccination in one package

The card also brings free animal tagging and vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease. The stated target is balanced nutrition for 600,000 animals over two years — better feed, the logic runs, means healthier herds and more meat.

The first phase gives the government its talking points. Loan recovery reached 96 percent, more than 23,300 cards have been prepared, and the number of women farmers in the scheme has climbed from 90 to over 1,100. Officials told the ceremony that Punjab’s meat exports rose by $96 million in a year and animal exports by 43 percent, with agreements involving eight major exporters and markets from China and Saudi Arabia to Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Europe. Some 23,000 farmers are now linked directly to exporters through the Livestock Connect portal.

Whether Phase II is remembered kindly will depend less on the launch figures than on a plainer question: how easily the credit reaches the small farmer at the end of a dirt road, far from Lahore’s ceremony halls.