Skin and Hides Selling Practices at Coastal Area of Sindh Province of Pakistan

The present study was carried out to study the marketing practices of skin and hides in coastal areas of Pakistan. Results of present study indicated that in Karachi, almost (100%) of the livestock keepers sell their hides and skins to city markets. 100% of farmer sell hides and skin to collection centers in Badin, Thatta and Sujawal. Majority of the butchers keep the animals inside house until they are slaughtered in Karachi, while at Badin and Sujawal keep the animals outside house until they are slaughtered. Most of the respondents (100%) stated that hides and skins are important for cash income in all study areas. In all study cities, majority of respondents used freshness of hides and skins criteria during purchasing. 75.00%, 100%, 100% and 100% respectively of the respondents noticed physical defects such as absence of flay cuts for determination of bestselling price of goat skins at study areas. 50%, 100%, 100% and 100% respectively of the collection centers purchased hides and skin in the last three months from middlemen in all four areas. 100% of the collection centers had opinion that the most dominant reasons for purchasing hides and skins was low price offer in all four cities. 100% of the respondents stated that the market price varies from season to season. Most of the respondents believed that the major reason for variation in market prices of skin and hides might be due to factory/tannery price variation. In conclusion, the respondents facing many impediments in marketing of skin and hides at coastal areas of Pakistan. The major constrains faced by respondents are administrative problems, poor quality of skin and hides, storage, transportation facility, lack of handling skin and hides. Received: August 20, 2020


Introduction
Hide represents the 12 percentage of the value of an animal.
Generally the hide is 17 percentage of the carcass weight and 7 percentage of live weight. Hence this part adds the considerable value in the animal products. The number of animals slaughtered daily clearly indicates the significant income potentiality of hides and skin, but in many parts of mountain and high-mountain, the hide is not collected at all or used inefficiently. Hide is considered just as waste material in these places. The suppliers have no or  (Leach, 1995) [4]. Goat skin is considered high quality raw material for leather industry. A policy on market weight and age of slaughter may yield qualitative and quantitative leather, reduce the cost of tanning and higher value due to larger skin size. Policy is also required to generate good dividend in the market and economic return to the farmers. Presently, scanty information is available on the effect of indiscriminate marketing and slaughtering of goats on yield of hides and skins their likely impact on economy.
Therefore, an investigation is needed to formulate effective policies on rearing and marketing of goats for improving production, income of the owners as well as meet consumer's requirement.
Hides and skins are the basic raw materials for the leather industry.
Currently there are about 27 tanneries in the country and have an average capacity of 4,000 pieces of hides and 30,000 pieces of skins per day (EEA 2007) [5]. However, they are working under capacity even if the country has a potential to supply around 20 million pieces of hides and skins per annum. Hides and skins by-products of the livestock sector are primarily the raw material for the tanning industry; where they provide leather for the manufacture of miscellaneous leather products, but especially shoes. Although any hide or skin can be processed into leather various breeds of sheep and goats provide the overwhelming majority of raw materials.
During the course of conventional (chrome) tanning, processes may be interrupted to provide intermediate materials such as pickled skins and wet blue leathers. All of these semi-processed materials, as well as raw materials and finished leathers (and leather products) may be traded internationally (FAO, 2013) [6]. Up to 65% of the defect that lead to decline of the quality occur in the pre-slaughter stage of production while the animal still alive and a considerable portion of these pre-slaughter defects are directly associated to skin disease initiated by external parasites (Desta, 2008) [7].
Limited work has been conducted on the skin and hides in the area. Information of this study may serve as a guideline for planning of proper skin removing at slaughter house, marketing channels and transportation, be care from defects scratch, and wound. Keeping in view the importance of hide and skin, the present study is designed to study skin and hide marketing practices in the coastal areas of Pakistan.

Materials and Methods
The present study was carried out during the year 2018 on the marketing of skin and hides in the coastal areas of Pakistan. Study focused 4 main cities (Karachi, Thatta, Sujawal and Badin)of coastal zone of Sindh Province of Pakistan. Initially, the general information was obtained from different sources for physical situation of the study area. Prior to collection of data, meetings were arranged with livestock experts in the cities to clear the purpose of study.
Field visits were made to gather pre-information and select the villages and thereby the household.A total of 4 villages from each of 4 cities and 15 respondents form each village were selected.
Respondents were interviewed to know the major management issues, constraints and causes of defect at tanneries regarding skin and hides of sheep/goat, cattle/buffalo and camel. The research was completed through a field survey by using well validated interview schedule. The interviewing schedule/questionnaire was considered an appropriate tool for the present study, which was advised according to the requirement and relevance of the present research to collect relevant data.
To attain accurate and reliable data, care and caution were taken in course of data collection. The farmers were asked questions in a face to face manner at doorstep. Based on the questionnaire the following major information was collected demographic characteristics such as educational status, purpose of keeping ruminants. 15respondents each village were selected for determining pre and post quality defects such as skin purification, wounds infestation, damages during grazing and slaughtering, knife cuts, ecto-parasites, horn rake, rope mark, small pox, branding, swelling, nodules, coloration as well as perception of respondents regarding hides and skin viz., veterinary services for sick animals, use of hide and skin, care of skin, selling of hide and skin, problems in finding buyers for sale of skin and hide, where they sale the hide and skin, constraints in sale of hides and skin in the market, marketing channels information, criteria of skin and hide buy, determination of sale prices, which type of skin and hide is highly demanded, etc.

Statistical Analysis
The data was statistically analyzed using computerized statistical package i.e. Student Edition of Statistics version 8.1.
Frequency and percentage of the obtained data was worked out and are presented in the results.

Age Wise Distribution of the Respondents
In Karachi, maximum number of respondents (52.38%) were

Perception of Middlemen/Traders (market) on Hides and Skin
The perception of middlemen/traders (market) regarding the hides and skin was evaluated and presented in the (Table 1). In Karachi, 100% of the livestock keepers sell their hides and skins to city market. Whereas, in Badin, Thatta and Sujawal majority (100%) of them sell the hides and skins to the collection centers.
In all four the majority (28.57%, 88.89%, 81.82% and 76.92%) of respondents said, they face difficulty to sell and rest of the (71.42%, 11.11%, 18.18% and 23.08%) of respondents said noany difficulty in finding buyers for selling. Exactly, 100% of the respondents sell hides and skin at lower price when hides and skin were not sold, that they sold in low price in all study areas. Majority (100%) of the respondents had opinion that the major reason of selling hides and skins was low price offer four cities. Almost 100% of the respondents stated that national price fixed the hides and skins prices in the market. Most (85.71%, 77.78%, 90.91% and 84.62%) of the respondents said no regarding look or quality of the skin when they buy and rest of the (14.29%, 22.22%, 9.09% and 15.38%) said yes for this question in all four study areas.

Perception of Butchers on Hides and Skin
Results in regarding the perception of butchers for marketing of hides and skin are presented in the (

Perception of Hide and Skin Collection Centers on Hides and Skin
The data in (Table 3)

Conclusion
Study concludes that the respondents face various constraints in marketing of skins and hides at the coastal areas of Sindh province of Pakistan. The most prominent constraints are diseases and parasites, fly cut, lack of veterinary service, drought, lack of competitive pricing, lack of transparent quality, lack of access to the market, respectively. The major constrains faced by butchers are administrative problems, unstable, poor quality of skin and hides, storage (preservation of skin and hides by means of salted vs non salted), transportation facility, lack of handling skin and hides, hygienic condition and information flow regarding marketing of skin and hides.