Purpose In view of increasing demand of halal foods and to properly address the needs of various types of consumers, the literary inquiries have sprung in this area since start of twenty-first century. However, the number of papers published in reputed journals is still pegged to the lowest ebb. This paper aims to systematically review all qualitative research papers, published in reputed journals, and to give specific directions to future researchers to move on and explore some other required areas. Design/methodology/approach The Campbell collaboration systematic literature review technique was adopted as methodology to screen out relevant studies. A total of 11 qualitative studies qualified the set criteria which have used various qualitative methodologies like interviews, focus groups, observations and netnography. The qualitative data were analyzed through nVivo software by adopting Spiggle’s steps of data analysis. Findings In these selected qualitative studies, around 24 main themes were extracted in total, out of which four themes were repeatedly discussed in most of these studies. Likewise, the details of geographical location of authors, type of methodology used, religious affiliation of respondents, type of journals, most prolific journals and citations of each paper were worked out and given in the form of result tables. Based on the importance of this fastest-growing global food market, it has been concluded that the qualitative research inquiries are still in infancy in this area, and more papers need to be published in reputed journals. Research limitations/implications As per set criteria, only papers published in quality journals were included in this review; therefore, the main limitation of this review is that it has not included other qualitative papers published elsewhere. Practical implications The future researchers can use the results of this study in setting direction of their research in the area of halal food consumption. These results can be used by academicians to know about the extent of research conducted in this area, whereas marketers can make prudent policies based on these explored areas. Originality/value It is claimed to be the first systematic literature review on halal food consumption.

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The study examines Pakistan’s microfinance institutions' performance and checks the productivity of microfinance institutions. For this purpose primary data was collected from a sample of 260 respondents from 6 microfinance banks in Sargodha District. This paper examined the livestock sector and the impact of microfinance on livestock productivity. According to the results of the role of microfinance was non-productive due to the high cost of borrowing, small loan size, high feed cost and use of the loan in a non-productive term. According to the results microfinance productivity is negative due to small loan size and high cost of borrowing. While the productivity of borrowing amount for large farm size is positive which is three times greater as compared to small farm size. So results showed that the efficiency of production increase through large scale farming. Small loan size and high cost of borrowing is a basic cause of negative microfinance productivity. Small loan size is not benefited for investment because the loan amount is unable to meet the basic requirements at the farm level for the increase in productivity of livestock farming. The main reason for the high productivity of livestock financing in large farming is due to its economies of size. Replacement of dilapidated equipment with modern equipment is one way to increase productivity in an organization. Large loan size decreases the inefficiency in input costs. The major three factors of livestock productivity are the amount of interest rates, milk production and feed cost which are responsible to make efficient use of loan amount in its productivity. Productive capacity is a basic characteristic of large farm size and loan productivity depends on productive capacity.

The present study has measured the cereal export competitiveness of Pakistan in global economy by utilizing different indices of Revealed comparative advantage (RCA): Balassa index (RCA), Vollrath index (RCA#), Revealed symmetric comparative advantage index (RSCA), Revealed import advantage index (RMA), Revealed trade advantage index (RTA) and Net export index (NEI). The data have been obtained from the International Trade Center UN-COMTRADE Statistics for cereal exports of Pakistan from 2003-2018. The findings of the analysis illustrate that Pakistan had a comparative and competitive advantage in the cereal sector. Further, the findings of the RTA index show that Pakistan’s cereal exports had also a net comparative advantage. Based on current findings, Pakistan needs to concentrate on production and exports of cereals. The brand name marketing of Pakistani rice with a special focus on better quality and improved market access can enhance the country’s share of the cereal sector in the global market.