The USAID-funded Baluchistan Agricultural Project is helping transform the wool industry in Musakhel District, Baluchistan by introducing modern practices like mechanical shearing, washing wool before shearing, and color-grading wool. This is increasing incomes and employment for farmers. The project trains community shearers and provides shearing equipment, helping one shearer increase his daily shearing from 10 to over 60 sheep. The new techniques are allowing farmers to expand wool sales to new markets.

1. Suceess Story
Machinechanged the old techniqueof shearing
Muzaffar khan CDMF Musakhel

2. Wool is an important source for incomes and jobs in rural and hard mountainous areas of Distt
Musakhel Baluchistan . Yet outdated practices and lack of exposure to markets leave the huge
potential of the industry untapped. The USAID-funded Baluchistan Agricultural Project initiates
transformation of the wool industry in in Musakhel Baluchistan
To increase incomes and employment opportunities, FAO, with funding from USAID, is helping
Community farmers of Musakhel to adopt modern wool-related practices, such as washing wool
before shearing, classifying color-graded wool, grading fleeces, and producing even-length fiber
through mechanical shearing. To help Community of Musakhel earn more income the project trains
Community Shearers and opportunities for jobless people such as grading and washing the fleece,
sorting.
Modernizing wool production practices—everything from classifying color-graded wool, grading
fleeces, washing wool before sale, and producing more even-length fiber through mechanical
shearing—is one way USAID and its implementing partner, the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization,areworking to tackle poverty and boost food security among farmers in Musakhel Distt
and other remote districts of Baluchistan’.
“The months of Mid march and August are fantastic times,” said community sheep shearer Shair
zaman . “The community is vibrant and active to share their sheeps from machine ” He adds: “The
whole process has become so simple, now I can shear more than 60 sheep in one day. In the past, I
used to shear with scissors and was hardly able to shear 07 to 10 sheep a day.”
The project imports the necessary equipment through a local business and constructed a sharpening
station to keep the combs and cutters in excellent working condition. A cadre of Community shearers
trains other farmers who are interested in purchasing and operating a mobile shearing shed on a
commercial basis. The project also developed a business model to support the adoption of this new
technique.
The project also established farmers marketing collective(FMCS)
As marketing and distribution are important to the success of any product for sale, USAID linked wool
farmers with traders in different parts of the country.
“We are very pleased to buy wool from Musakhel distt Baluchistan shorn this way,” says local wool
trader Haaji Bazak . “The even length of the fleece as a result of this new technique and equipment
means that our farmers now able to expand our wool to Karachi market .
”Innovative techniques such as mechanized shearing, washing sheep before shearing, and sorting
wool during the shearing process are essential to increased productivity, income and growth for the
Musakhel distt Baluchistan wool industry. And farmers like Shair zaman are already benefitting.
The Baluchistan Agriculture Project, which runs in Musakhel Distt from February 2013 to june 2016 ,
aims to increase the incomes of Community through new Modrenized machine shearing technology,
practices, and new varieties of crops and livestock.