Supply projections for beef in Pakistan by the year 2030 AD

The supply projection for beef in Pakistan by the year 2030 AD has been made on the basis of time series data of the time period from 1980-81 to 2011-12. This study has been designed to estimate the beef meat projection supply chain in next decade in Pakistan. Both linear regression and polynomial price lag models are employed to analyze the effects of various factors on beef supply in the country. It is found that higher beef prices stimulate its production in the country. Availability of cattle and buffalo animal units for beef production also contributes positively and significantly to the production. Cattle and buffalo are good converters of fodder into products of highly nutritive value, thus increase in fodder prices has not affected beef production in the past and may not affect it to a large extent in future. However, a little impairment in the production technology for beef has been observed over time. It is projected that beef supply would be 2532 and 2535 thousand tones under linear and polynomial price lag models in the year 2030 AD, respectively. It is expected that beef production will grow at a lower rate of 2.0% per annum against past growth rate of 4.6% per annum from 1980-81 to 2011-12. Policy makers of the state may adopt policies to boost beef production in the country. This study draws the attention to set goals to achieve the expected target of beef meat in future to meet the needs of the country.


Introduction
Livestock is an important sub-sector of agriculture.The sub-sector contributes 11.9% to national GDP.The livestock population is comprised of 39.7 million cattle, 34.6 million buffaloes, 66.6 million goats, 29.1 million sheep and one million camels [1].Total supply of meat in the country in the year 2012-13 was 3497 thousand tonnes.National production of beef in the year 2012-13 was 1829 thousand tonnes.Thus, beef shares the most (54.8%) in total meat supply in the country.While, shares of mutton and poultry meat in national meat production were 19.5 and 25.8 percent, respectively [2].During last five years, production of beef has increased by 2.8 per annum, which is second highest growth rate in production of all meat types after poultry meat.Increase in population, urbanization, per capita income and export opportunities are fueling demand for meat and other livestock products in the country.On the other hand, increase in per unit animal productivity and a shift from subsistence to market oriented, and then to commercial livestock farming can boost economic growth and help improve food security situation in the country [1].Official estimates about supply and demand of livestock products in the country made in the year 1999-2000 and 2004-05 depict a gloomy picture i.e. demand for beef and mutton have already surpassed production levels, and supply-demand gaps will get widened with the passage of time

Materials and methods
Supply side analysis of beef is based on time series data for the time period 1980-81 to 2011-12 about production, prices, prices of fodder, amount of agricultural credit disbursed by Zari Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL), buffalo and cattle animal units for beef production, and the stage of production technology.Prices as well as other monetary variables were converted at the prices of year 2000-01.Moreover, the projection of supply (production) requires knowledge of future values of exogenous variables.These variables are projected using their growth trends over the last thirty-two years (1980-81 to 2011-12).It is estimated that livestock animal units available for the beef production in the year 2011-12 were 14.9 million (8.7 million cattle and 6.2 million buffalo animal units), with per animal productivity of 120.8 kg per annum.It is projected that cattle and buffalo animal units available for beef production would be 20.4 million by the 2030.Thus, growth in livestock animal units for beef production would be 1.8 percent per annum.Growth in nominal and real prices of beef from 1980-81 to 2010-11 were 11.1 and 1.7 percent, respectively.Same growth rates in prices have been used for the beef supply projections.The linear regression and polynomial price lag models used for the study are given by equations 1 and 2, respectively.
Where SBt is quantity of beef production PBt is beef price of current period PBt-1 is one lag beef price PBt-2 is two lag beef price PF is fodder prices AC is amount of agricultural credit disbursed by ZTBL CU is number of cattle animal units for beef production BU is number of buffalo animal units for beef production T is the time, which is a proxy for technological change and βi's are the coefficient of the variables.µ  is error term, which may arise due to aggregate effect of variables not included in the model.The supply projections for the beef are obtained by using the expression given by equation 3 Where, S is supply/ production of beef in year t S0 is the beef production per animal unit in the base year (2011-12), Pg is growth in nominal prices, Ps is price elasticity of supply for beef; Nt is projected animal units (cattle + buffalo) for beef production in year t.

Unit Root Test (Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test: ADF)
The results of unit root test are given in Table 1.The variable of beef production (SB) is non-stationary at level without both intercept and trend terms, but becomes stationary at first difference.The variables of beef price (PB) is stationary at level along with intercept and trend terms.The variable of buffalo animal units for beef production (BU) is nonstationary at level along with intercept and trend terms, however becomes stationary at first difference.The variables of fodder price (PF) and agricultural credit disbursed by ZTBL (AC) are non-stationary at level along with intercept, but become stationary at first difference.The variable of cattle animal units for beef production (CU) is non-stationary at level without both intercept and trend terms, but becomes stationary by taking first difference.

Conclusion and recommendations
Beef shares the most in national meet supply.The demand of beef has already surpassed it supply.Moreover, growth in its production is decreasing overtime.Most of the cattle/buffalo farms in the country are subsistence.Thus, a shift from subsistence to market oriented and commercial farms is required to boost beef production in the country.Along with this, encouragement of smallholder livestock production should also be sought.This is also imperative to control increasing beef prices and to improve its intake by the people.Other important causes of lowering beef production are poor feeding and outdated livestock husbandry practices [11].Thus, there is a dire need to teach farmers about better animal husbandry practices and to increase their capacity to ameliorate animal feeding.
[12] stated that education status of the farmers, herd size, information utilization pattern and information seeking behaviour are the factor significantly correlated with adoption of scientific livestock farming.These farmers' characteristics should also be considered, while designing educational programs for them.Policy reforms for cattle/buffalo fattening may include, improved access to institutional credit, production inputs and marketing facilities for the farmers.

[ 3 ]
. Thus, over time demand and supply issues of meat have become somewhat complex.Information about demand and supply of beef and other meat types is crucial for efficacious policy formulation for the development of the livestock sector.In this perspective, few researchers have analyzed supply of beef in Pakistan viz.[4, 5].Study by Ahmad and Chaudhry was based on simple growth model; however, [5] used polynomial price lag model to estimate supply response functions of beef in the country.In the present study log linear regression model and polynomial price lag model have been employed to figure out impacts of various factors on the supply beef.The supply projections of beef towards year 2030 have also been made.
Authors' contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: KM Aujla, Performed the experiments: KM Aujla, Analyzed the data: N Sadiq, Contributed reagents/ materials/ analysis tools: KM Aujla, N Sadiq, S Laghari & MI Jakhro, Wrote the paper: KM Aujla & N Sadiq.

Table 1 . Unit Root Test (Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test: ADF)
Note: *** and ** indicate the rejection of null hypothesis of unit-root at 1% and 5% levels of significance, respectivelyThe estimated coefficients of linear regression model are presented in the

Table 2 .
Most of the variables have expected signs.

Table 3 . Estimates of the supply response model (Polynomial price lag model) Variables Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob.
Note: ***, ** and * are significant at 1, 5 and 10 percent levels, respectively