Azeema Bibi, 65, has kept a buffalo for as long as she can remember. It has provided everyone in the house, especially the children, with a glass of milk and quite often some butter, cream or 'lassi' (butter-milk), as well as an income from the sale of surplus produce.
"Now, for the first time, we have no buffalo; just a few chickens and goats. I am very sad, but we simply cannot afford to keep one," Azeema told IRIN.
The elderly woman lives with her son, her grandchildren and a great grandchild in the village of Malaach, about 50km north of Murree, about an hour's drive from Islamabad.
She said the price of animal feed had risen dramatically over the past year. A sack that cost Rs 100 (about US$1.5) now costs Rs 150 (approx US$2.00) or more, and "we simply cannot manage to keep our buffalo, especially through the months when it is not giving milk".
The rise in animal feed prices could not have come at a worse time: food prices have gone up nearly 20 percent in the past year, and many local people depend on their animals for survival. If they sell them, household nutrition could be adversely affected.
But across the area, where buffaloes and cows once grazed, and home-produced buffalo milk was once the norm, the animals are vanishing.
"It is difficult to keep a buffalo. People can no longer afford it. Also families have been selling off any asset they have because they need the money, and a buffalo sells for Rs 80,000 [about US$1,230] or more," said Lal Khan, 55, a caretaker at a bungalow in the area.
"Of course this means people are getting less food than before. Children now must depend on milk bought at the market and we can buy only when money is left over."
 Now the rise in food prices makes it very difficult to keep our horses fed and if we can't keep them, there will be no income. |
The concerns of Gohar Rehman, 45, a horseman who earns his livelihood by taking children for rides in the holiday season, when the Murree area swarms with visitors, are still more acute.
"My horse, Kiran, eats 16-20 kg of `choker’ [chaff from wheat] each day. A kilo of `choker’ that cost Rs 8-10 [15 US cents] now costs Rs 20 [30 US cents] a kilo. It is impossible to manage. I fear the day may come when I can no longer manage to keep a horse and then what will I do?" he asked.
Muhammad Zulqernain, 30, who also owns a horse, feels the same way. "Life is hard up here in the mountains. We hardly earn at all through the winter months, because there are no tourists and the roads are snow-bound. Now the rise in food prices makes it very difficult to keep our horses fed and if we can't keep them, there will be no income," he said.
Rehman and Zulqernain both earn about Rs 7,000 (about $107) a month during the summer from their horses, but earn little during the six months of the year when there are few visitors. “We struggle to bring adequate food into our homes," Rehman said.
"My two children are so far being fed three meals a day. But I worry the day may come when I can no longer offer them even the lentils and 'roti' [wheat flour bread] we currently live on." A 20 kg sack of flour, which cost Rs 250 ($3.8) a few months ago, now costs Rs 450 ($6.9).
The government has initiated an income support scheme that it says will "target the poorest of the poor" of the country’s 160 million people, but there are doubts this will help people like Rehman and Zulqernain. "The government is doing nothing. We survive as we can," said Zulqernain.
 Photo: Kamila Hyat/IRIN  |
| Uzma Bibi and relatives carry home grass to feed animals |
At household level, it is the women who bear the brunt of the problem. "We suffer most when there is a crunch," said Uzma Bibi, 25. The mother of two explains that it is "mothers and wives who eat less so husbands and children can be fed".
In many homes, women traditionally eat after the men, and "sometimes I manage with just a few bites, because that is all that is left", said Uzma Bibi. Like many village women, Uzma walks 10km or more each day to fetch water, firewood and also grass and leaves to feed household animals.
"We keep a cow and two goats. These days I cut more grass - even though it is tough work to squat, cut and then carry home the bundles - because it is too expensive to buy any feed in the market," she said. "At least the grass is free - at least for now," she said.
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
