This year Shykh Seraj visited Belgium, one of the world's major cattle-producing countries, whose famous breed is the Belgian Blue. It goes by many names, such as White Blue, Blue White and White Blue Pied, depending on coat colour.

Belgian Blue cows weigh an average of at least 800 kg, at least five times Bangladeshi cattle, and bulls weigh 1,100 to 1,250 kg on average. At Avelgem, a village in West Flanders, farmer Geert showed the animals.

The breed developed in central and upper Belgium in the 1960s and quickly became famous for double muscling. It has no hump and a flat back, and reaches 750 kg within three years. All calves on the farm are born by caesarean section, and a cow can undergo six. A day-old calf weighs 65 kg and drinks five litres of powdered milk a day; from three months, milk is replaced by concentrate feed.

A farm official said no antibiotics are used; the growth comes from a mutation of the myostatin gene. The breed gives more meat than any other beef cattle and adapts to any weather.

Ahead of Eid ul-Adha, the Department of Livestock Services counts 4.42 million cattle and 7.05 million goats and sheep fit for sacrifice, yet cattle still come from a neighbouring country. A Bangladeshi cow yields about 200 kg of meat on average, while a Belgian Blue naturally yields about 800 kg. The breed is widely raised in Europe, Brazil, America, Canada and New Zealand.

Under a Department of Livestock Services project in 2008-10, the American Brahman breed was introduced and is now raised in 80 upazilas with encouraging results. Seraj suggests a comparative study of Brahman and Belgian Blue at farm level, then spreading the better breed, which with sound research and field technology could bring a meat revolution.

Source: Shykh Seraj. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.