Pink buffalo farming in Bangladesh
Many factories in all the large sheds at Dashergaon village in Narayanganj's Bandar upazila, and between these, an enterprising young man, Lutfar Rahman Swapan, has set up a factory, SS Cattle Farm, with different kind of dream. I had the opportunity to visit his huge cattle farm a week before the Eid-ul-Azha this year and wrote about it on The Daily Star. Swapan was in abroad for a long time. After studying in Europe, he also worked there; but his zeal was to come back to his homeland and do something very special. He started his farming initiative back in 2006. He has built a huge livestock farm of different breeds and managed to make a living by adopting organic cattle rearing.
In addition to the 360 local and foreign bulls, the eight bigha (Around 3.2 acres) farm also has 25 dairy cows, buffaloes, goats and garols (a variety of sheep). Swapan said raising a garol is the most profitable, as it does not cost much. So he is thinking about increasing the numbers of garol at his farm. He also has several goats, gayal (unique bovine species) and bhutti cow. Apart from these, there are high-priced cows, known as Nepali, Australian, Frisian and Brahman breeds. Swapan's collection includes buffaloes of various breeds, ranging from Nili-Ravi to Murah, Zafarabadi, Kundi and even a flock of a special pink breed. The pink variety of buffalo is also known as Albino or White Buffalo around the world. Many say it is a American breed. According to the Native Americans, the first white buffalo was seen in 1833. Researchers claim that usually one white buffalo is born in every 10 million. There is still disagreement as to whether the process of the birth of this white buffalo is due to albinism or leucism. Whatever the differences are, Swapan claims that the 12 pink buffaloes at his farm are of American breed. He first saw this breed on a trip to Arizona in USA three years back. Then he returned to the country to find out how to raise this buffalo at his farm. He collected 12 pink buffaloes from different farms across Bangladesh and India. Starting from a hobby, Swapan is now seeing commercial prospects in this colourful buffalo. And he has taken the initiative to capitalize on the potential to increase the number by breeding.
Buffalo is a very important domestic animal in our livestock sector. Buffaloes are mostly reared in open spaces along the coastal areas of the country. Leaving buffaloes on pastures or river banks is an old tradition and doing such is called to rear the buffaloes at a bathan (livestock pasture). There are buffalo herds in many coastal districts like Bhola, Satkhira, Khulna, Bagerhat, Barguna, Barishal, Chandpur, Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Feni, Gopalganj, Jhalakathi, Laxmipur, Narail, Noakhali, Pirojpur, Shariatpur and Patuakhali. Buffaloes are also reared in Sirajganj, Bogura, Tangail and Jamalpur. Besides, there is a tradition of keeping buffaloes in the farmers' house in all over the country. But, in the real sense, there are no extensive research, development or such activities about buffalo.
I remember, in 1990-91, I went to a remote area of Bhola to film the TV programme, 'Mati O Manush' (Soil & People) for Bangladesh Television. There, a young man named Sirajul Islam used to raise more than 500 buffaloes. They lived in a high-hut on the char land. These 'tong-ghars' were like bamboo forts. It was raining that day. The owner of that buffalo herd was Sirajul who gave different names to each of the buffaloes at his bathan. Some of them were named Bobita, Shabana, Jasim, then the leading film actors of our country. A buffalo was named Golapi (pink) because it was slightly pink in colour. Whenever Sirajul was calling them with their names, they were responding accordingly! I still can't forget that magnificent event of bondage.
Lal Teer Livestock Limited, a leading private agri-industrial company in our country, and the Beijing Genome Institute in China jointly unveiled the buffalo genome sequence. Fourteen scientists conducted the study. I talked to Abdul Awal Mintoo, the chairman of Lal Teer Livestock Limited. Mintoo said the cost of raising buffaloes has come down to less than half of the cost of raising cows. Buffaloes can play a unique role in meeting the demand for meat and milk. However, the Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) has a five-year project on multi-faceted research, including buffalo breed development. The Buffalo Development Project will end in 2023. I talked about the activities of the project with Director General of BLRI Md Abdul Jalil and he said they are working on inventing a hybrid breed of buffalo as well.
Dear readers, I said at the beginning that the entrepreneurs of our country are very much interested in undertaking any new project, looking at its commercial prospects and Swapan's farm is showing great hope. He has come up with the dream of building a world-class farm. I hope he'll do even better in the future. He hopes to go a long way with new initiatives and I admire his vision. However, research has an important role to play in encouraging such entrepreneurs. Through this, we could move towards a great opportunity with the white buffalo. I hope that public-private led initiatives will strengthen the development of buffalo breeds in the country. Let there be great achievements in this sector of livestock. I consider that the contribution of buffalo in meeting the demand of our meat and dairy will be prosperous.
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