Pakistan Milk Production Nears 75 Million Tonnes as Meat Output Surges Nationwide

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's dairy animals and poultry sheds had a big year. Gross milk production reached 74.689 million tonnes in FY2025-26, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2025-26 just short of the 75-million mark. Meat crossed 6.3 million tonnes for the first time on record.

Milk output has been climbing steadily for three straight years now. Last year it stood at 72.343 million tonnes. The year before that, 70.071 million. This isn't a one-off jump it's a slow, consistent build.

Buffaloes still do most of the work. They produced 44.414 million tonnes this year, close to 60 percent of everything the country's dairy animals put out. Cows added 28.104 million tonnes. Sheep, goats, and camels made up what's left.

Pakistan Milk Production

Not every liter produced ends up in a glass, though. The survey knocks off about 20 percent of cow and buffalo milk before counting what people actually drink 15 percent lost to bad transport and weak chilling infrastructure, another 5 percent going to calves. After those cuts, milk available for human consumption came to 60.185 million tonnes, up from 58.300 million last year. Cows contributed 22.484 million tonnes of that. Buffaloes: 35.531 million. The rest came from camels, goats, and sheep in smaller amounts.

Also Read: Pakistan Poultry Population Hits Record 2.47 Billion as Production Soars Nationwide

Meat grew too, and grew fast. Total output reached 6.314 million tonnes, up almost 6 percent from 5.967 million tonnes the year before. One sector drove nearly all of it.

Pakistan Meat production

Poultry. It hit 2.826 million tonnes this year, nearly 45 percent of all the meat Pakistan produced. Beef recovered from last year's dip, climbing to 2.634 million tonnes. Mutton rose slightly too, to 854,000 tonnes.

One thing worth flagging here these numbers aren't final. The government built them using livestock population estimates carried forward from the 1996 and 2006 Livestock Census, not a fresh count. The 7th Agricultural Census 2024-25 hasn't produced its complete livestock data yet. Once it does, expect these figures to move, maybe up, maybe down.

But the direction, at least for now, is clear enough. Milk and meat output keep rising year after year, and in a country where livestock feeds rural incomes and half the protein on the dinner table, that trend line means more to most households than any single decimal point in a government survey.