Cattle breeding shows promise
This year, local cattle breeders met 80 percent of the demand for sacrificial animals during Eid-ul-Azha. Over the last two years, local farmers have turned their attention to rearing local breeds as India put restrictions on cattle flow to Bangladesh. This growing trend has benefitted from prudent financing policy introduced by the Bangladesh Bank which launched a soft loan scheme with an interest rate of 5 percent to help boost cattle farming. The cumulative effect of the ban and access to easy loans is that the traditional cattle farming zones of Pabna and Sirjaganj have expanded to other districts. The Bangladesh Meat Mercants' Association allege that in the past oversupply of cattle in the days leading up to the sacrificial festival led to hundreds of thousands of animals remaining unsold, which resulted in loss for the farmers.
While we are happy to see a boost in domestic production of cattle, the supply chain of cattle needs to be looked into, because Eid-ul-Azha cannot be the only reason why farmers should be encouraged to breed cattle. The processed meat export market, especially in the Middle East is a very lucrative place and there is great potential for our cattle breeders if we can successfully tap into the market. This would require policy measures to be put in place allowing for a nascent meat packaging industry to grow alongside greater farmer participation in rearing cattle and could become yet another source of foreign exchange for the country.
Comments