Back to news
11 Jul 2016 | News

Angora Rabbits Improving Livelihoods in Pakistan

1 min Read

70% Complete

An Angora rabbit farming pilot initiative was launched as a high value livelihood source for marginalised communities, particularly women in mountain areas of Pakistan, with the support of the International Centre of Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC). The pilot was initiated in 2010. PARC established its first model Angora rabbitry  at the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) by importing 25 white Angora rabbits from Kathmandu, Nepal.  Now NARC rabbitry maintains up to 200 Angora rabbits including three coloured breeds — German Angora, French Angora, and Himalayan Angora, covering jet black, brown and grey colours. PARC conducted a successful assessment of Angora rabbit farming in Pakistan under various ecological conditions to developing an Angora rabbit up-scaling package for the mountain communities in Pakistan.

To date, PARC has distributed dozens of Angora rabbit units (4 females and 2 males per unit) among the women farmers in Murree hills of Punjab and Hazara Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KPK). With the technical support of PARC, the government of KPK established another Angora rabbitry at Livestock Experimentation Station (LES), Jaba, District Mansehra to meet the Angora rabbit units demand from the mountain parts of KPK. PARC recently announced a supply of Angora rabbit units to further strengthen local livelihoods in the ICIMOD project area in the Upper Indus Basin — Upper Gojal, Gilgit as well as to Forest, Wildlife and Environment Department (FWED), Skardu, Baltistan.

PARC has made progress on value chain development of Angora wool and has successfully introduced different market products like Angora yarn, threads, Angora shawls, socks, etc.

Stay current

Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.

Sign Up

Related content

Continue exploring this topic

16 Sep 2015 HKPL
Collaboration important for Wakhan National Park

ICIMOD and Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock of Afghanistan (MAIL) jointly organised a one-day meeting 5 August 2015 to explore ...

14 Jan 2015 News
Radio Interview: Climate Change and Adaptation in Nepal

In his interview, Dr Shrestha clarified at the outset that ICIMOD is an intergovernmental organization, governed by a Board of ...

29 Apr 2016 News
Glaciology Student Work Presented at ICIMOD

On 8 April 2016, four students in their final year of MS Research in Glaciology shared their thesis progress with ...

29 Sep 2015 News
Member countries develop methodology for land degradation Assessment

  Land degradation is common across the Hindu Kush Himalayan region, but surrounding countries lack proper documentation and modelling to properly ...

11 May 2017 Himalica
Joint Monitoring of Himalica Pilot Project in Tsirang, Bhutan

During the visit, the joint monitoring team interacted with goat and vegetable value chain groups formed by Himalica and a ...

2 Jan 2015 News
International Conference on Mountain People Adapting to Change completed

The event brought together over 300 climate scientists, adaptation policy makers, and practitioners with the goal of finding more holistic ...

22 Jul 2019 Water
Fourth regional hands-on training on community-based flood early warning systems

Floods and flash floods in the Hindu Kush Himalaya cause considerable loss of lives and property, particularly during the monsoon. ...

17 Nov 2015 News
The Music in Ziro

  By 7am, we were in Ziro. Rubu got us on the road that crisscrossed the vast horizon of paddy fields. ...