Livestock sector requires immediate incentive: study

Dairy farmers are incurring a loss of Tk 18.9 crore every day as they are unable to sell 40 lakh litres of milk and are forced to sell 37 lakh litre at reduced prices, according to a study of CARE Bangladesh.

There is a sharp fall in income as sales of 90 percent of retailers, the income of 85 percent of paravets, and 74 percent of farmers dropped due to the current market situation, it said.

Primary findings showed that the pandemic had started a rapidly declining trend in input demand, forward market trade, and basic supply chain functions. This resulted in a decrease in income from businesses on which thousands of entrepreneurs and producers are dependent for their livelihoods.

A multipurpose cash assistance for farmers could be a needed intervention to buy necessary inputs to continue their farming through the pandemic. There should be a provision of soft loans for the livestock farmers through Bangladesh Krishi Bank, RAKAB, commercial banks and micro-finance institutions with a minimum rate of interest having no collateral and longer term of repayment schedule, it added.

The average daily customers and sales of 90 percent of retailers have dropped by 46 percent and 54 percent respectively, compared to the scenario before the outbreak of Covid-19. Daily customers have also dropped from 54 percent to 25 percent and sales from TK 18,300 to TK 9,977.

While 72 percent of surveyed retailers report that they cannot collect their input on time due to restrictions on transport and limited supply from companies. About 97 percent of entrepreneurs forecast that they will face huge losses if the situation continues for the next 3 months. Among them, 67 percent of entrepreneurs will incur debts or scale down their businesses and 47 percent will shut down their businesses. There is an adverse impact on household income as well.

More than 70 percent of rural households are engaged in livestock-related production and businesses through which smallholders and many landless households earn a livelihood.

These smallholders and landless farmers are now facing the hard consequences from the current Covid-19 situation, women are facing the hardest burden.

"While the support provided by the Bangladesh government and development partners to the country's export sectors is timely and important, the plight of people working in agriculture and the informal economy, many of whom live in poverty or are on the verge of falling back into poverty, should not be forgotten. Many great initiatives are gaining momentum to provide immediate relief to the urban poor, who have been hit hard by the lockdown," says Derek George, deputy director of cooperation at the Switzerland embassy in Bangladesh.

The assessment of the livestock sector by Shomoshti sheds light on the impact of the Covid crisis in rural areas, he added. "Given the importance of livestock rearing for the rural poor, the sector offers a potentially cost-efficient way to rapidly channel much-needed support to millions of poor households in rural areas."