Professor Md Bahanur Rahman, dean of the veterinary faculty and a syndicate member at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), has called for government subsidies for poultry like those for crop farming, Agri Barta reports. He spoke on Saturday (10 October) at a World Egg Day seminar in the faculty's medicine department gallery.
Bangladesh produces 25.9 billion eggs a year against an annual demand of 18.55 billion, he said, so the country is self-sufficient and could export the surplus. But high feed prices and disease are major obstacles: with vaccines, farm management and feed, one egg now costs Tk 10 to Tk 11 to produce. A subsidy, he argued, would protect farmers and bring cheaper eggs to consumers.
He added that each upazila now has a single veterinarian, who cannot properly treat 50,000 to 60,000 animals, and called for at least five or six veterinary posts per upazila.
The keynote at the seminar, titled "Protein that powers and protects", was given by Professor Md Shafiqul Islam of the pharmacology department. He said one egg provides 72 calories and 6.3 grams of protein, that egg production in Bangladesh has grown 2.3 times in ten years, and that the country ranks ninth in the world for egg output.
A rally marked the day in the morning, after which 3,500 eggs were handed out free to university students, pupils of seven schools on the campus, passers-by and working people. Fisheries faculty dean Professor Md Ali Reza Faruk and Egg Day committee convener Professor Md Rafiqul Alam were among those at the seminar.
Photo: Salam Bulbul / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0); eggs
Source: Agri Barta
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