Dubai-based food company explores opportunities in Pakistani corporate farming

ISLAMABAD: Bassam Karanouh, a partner of the Dubai-based Caballero Foods company, visited the FonGrow agriculture and livestock farm in Khanewal city to explore opportunities in Pakistani corporate farming and promote “sustainable supply chains in the global meat market,” Radio Pakistan reported on Sunday.
Pakistan last year set up a Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC) — a civil-military hybrid forum — to attract foreign funding in agriculture, mining, information technology, defense production and energy as the South Asian country deals with a balance of payments crisis and requires billions of dollars in foreign exchange to finance its trade deficit and repay its international debts in the current financial year.
Initiatives in the agriculture sector under SIFC are being administered by FonGrow, which is part of the Fauji Foundation investment group run by former Pakistani military officers.
“A partner of Dubai Based Company Caballero Foods visited the FonGrow agriculture and livestock farm in Khanewal,” Radio Pakistan reported on Sunday. “The purpose of the visit was to explore the sustainable supply chains in the global meat market as well as promote bilateral trade ties with Gulf countries.”
The visiting company official was informed about the process of In Vitro Fertilization being used by FonGrow, in which an egg was fertilized outside the uterus of female cattle in a laboratory, resulting in the creation of multiple offspring from a healthy animal’s ovum.

“I would be glad to be the ambassador for Pakistan, for all the product they have, not only the meat because, I do believe in the product that they are producing,” Kakanouh said.
In an interview to Arab News last year, the CEO of FonGrow said Pakistan was seeking up to $6 billion investment from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain over the next three to five years for corporate farming, with the aim of cultivating 1.5 million acres of previously unfarmed land and mechanizing existing 50 million acres of agricultural lands across the country.
“We have estimated about $5-6 billion [investment from Gulf nations] for initial three to five years,” Major General (retired) Tahir Aslam, FonGrow’s managing-director and chief executive officer, told Arab News in an interview.
He declined to share details about the breakdown of the investment from each individual country. 
The CEO said the company was engaging with several Saudi companies like Al-Dahara, Saleh and Al-Khorayef to attract investment in the corporate farming sector. 
Aslam said his company was also working on different investment models with the Saudi and UAE companies for corporate farming, including joint ventures.