Only one day remains before Eid. There are no cattle left at the cattle markets at this moment, so goats are now in demand. Compared with the market prices of the past few days of the qurbani markets, cattle prices at almost all the capital's markets rose sharply today (31 July), and city residents are going from market to market. In some places, even paying extra does not get them the cattle they want. With cattle scarce, goats are now the last-minute option, and demand for them has risen since the morning.

A tour of different parts of the capital on Friday morning found informal goat markets set up everywhere from neighbourhoods to large and small roads. Wherever there was a market there was a crowd. With more buyers than goats on offer, sellers were asking at least Tk 2,000 to Tk 10,000 more than at other times, depending on the goat. Many people who could not buy cattle were taking home more than one goat.

An informal goat market had sprung up beside the road at the Municipal Market at Palashi crossing. Government official Abdus Salam, who lives in the Palashi staff quarters, came with his seven-year-old son to buy a goat. The seller asked Tk 11,000 for a small goat.

Starting the bargaining at Tk 7,000, Abdus Salam finally managed to buy the goat for Tk 9,000. "This goat should not be worth more than Tk 7,000 in any way," he told this correspondent.

At Bakshibazar crossing, Shahadat Hossain, a small trader from Moulvibazar, was bargaining over a healthy goat. When the seller named a fixed price of Tk 22,000, he said in his dialect: "You heard there are no cattle at the market and your head got hot. You want a fixed Tk 22,000 for a goat worth Tk 15,000 at most?"

Turning to a young man standing beside him, he said: "There's no point performing qurbani at such a price. Let's go home."

He told this correspondent: "Every year a few of us together sacrifice a cow. Because business has not been good with the coronavirus, I had decided to buy a cow on the last day. But I could not have imagined there would be no cattle at the markets at the last minute. My budget is Tk 12,000 to 15,000, but buying a goat I like will cost Tk 22,000 to 25,000."

A goat seller named Mozammel Haque said: "Goat meat already costs Tk 900 a kg. By that reckoning goats are expensive. Besides, I have worked hard these past few days to make some profit ahead of Eid."

He admitted, however, that with no cattle at the markets, demand for goats had risen, so sellers had raised their prices.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.