FROM DESERT TO SHEEP LAND

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26971, 21 February 1953, Page 5

FROM DESERT TO SHEEP LAND

Pakistan Development Project N.Z. AND AUSTRALIA SUPPLY STOCK (By a Reuter Correspondent.) SHAHPUR. New Zealand and Australian sheep are coming to Pakistan to help to turn a barren desert into a rich agricultural area. In West? Punjab, the 5,000,000-acre desert between the Jhelum and Indus rivers, known as the Thaal area, is the scene of one of the world’s biggest reclamation, irrigation and colonisation projects, in • which sheep-breeding plays an important part. Most of the fertile areas of Punjab are reclaimed desert. Thai, though often considered, remained until now an intractable artea, where intense heat is accompanied by high winds and raging dust storms. Amid the desolation, Thai developed its own peculiar brand of sheep, small and light, but with a good coat of coarse Wool ideal for carpet manufacture. These sheep, with their white bodies and dark heads with long drooping ears, yielded little meat, largely because of the poor food they got. With partition and the flood of refugees who entered the newly-created Pakistan, it seemed likely that the Thai sheep would become extinct, so fast were they being, sent to the slaughter houses. ‘ Work had begun before the war on the reclamation of Thai, and after 1947 the authorities decided that the indigenous breed of sheep there must be preserved and developed. In 1949, the Thai Development Authority (T.D.A.) was established on the lines of the American Tennessee Valley Authority. The livestock farm, for which New Zealand and Australia offered expert assistance under the Colombo Plan, has a prominent place in the plan. Merino Cross Australia is sending 300 Merino ewes and 100 rams which will be crossed with Thai sheep at the 15,000acre livestock farm estblished near Kalur Kot. The Merinos are being elected from areas where climatic conditions are as near as possible to those of Thai. But because of the intense heat in Thai, where temperatures go up to more than-120 degrees fahrenheit a small farm is being established in the hills to help to acclimatise the sheep. Special care is being taken to select the best Thai -ewes and rams, and it has been found that the small size hitherto considered a characteristic of the breed is not caused just by poor . nourishment, but also because it has been customary to take lambs away from their mothers too soon. Given time, Thai lambs grow to the same? size as their mothers in three to four months. One hundred corriedale ewes and 10 rams are New Zealand’s contribution. Unlike the Merinos, the corrie- . dales will not be crossbred and will i be kept separate to see how they thrive in the area. In addition to the work at the livestock farm, it is intended to establish flocks of sheep all over the Thai area as it is reclaimed. Already, more than 300,000 acres of desert encompassed by the development plan have been broken up and farmers settled .upon them. Village Flocks Each village block will have it own flock of sheep, and 15 acres of grazing s land fs being given to a farmer on * condition that he buys 10 sheep and 10 > foreign hens in the first year and adds J 20 sheep each year until he has a * flock of 50. The Thai Animal Husbandry Deparr- - ment instructs the farmer on feeding, C what fodder to grow and how, and s insists that sufficient be kept in store r to provide for the flock apart from s grazing. 1 Rams must be obtained only from 1 the livestock farm and the advice of i the department’s experts on breeding 1 must be accepted on pain of losing r the holding. Experts examine the lambs, and - though they are the property of the r farmers, he must dispose of them if e they are not considered up to standard, i accepting selected ones in return. I Instructions are given on how to i shear the sheep and the wool must be i sold through co-operatives organised e by the department.