Haidar Ali of Ullapara village in Bogura's Dhunat upazila and two partners bought a sacrificial cow for Tk 96,000. Butchers and other experienced people say the animal will yield six mon of net meat. That works out at Tk 16,000 a mon of meat, or Tk 400 a kg. Yet beef is still selling at Tk 550 a kg in Bogura town and elsewhere. All in all, buyers are winning this time, but cattle farmers are losing out.

"The three of us partners won by buying this cow. But has the farmer who raised it for three years been able to win? If this situation continues, that farmer will lose interest in raising cattle in future," Haidar Ali said.

People in the area are not in good spirits, he said. Half of those in the village who used to perform qurbani are not doing so this year, because with the coronavirus and the latest floods there is no Eid to speak of for people in the northern region. In the latest floods, farmers' unripe and ripe paddy on lakhs of bighas of land went under water, and they cannot even think of qurbani.

"There is no point in being well alone. Eid is joyful when everyone is well together and there is a smile on everyone's face," Haidar Ali said.

At Kaharol haat in Dinajpur, many bullocks were on sale. The huge, pure white bullocks are not Bangladeshi; they were born in India. As every year, when lakhs of Indian cattle come into Bangladesh and are raised here, this year was no exception.

Amjad Fakir, a trader at Kaharol haat in Dinajpur, said: "At Tk 16,000 to 17,000 a mon of meat, I can supply as many truckloads of cattle as needed." It is not only the Dinajpur border, he said: look at the cattle markets in any district, including Dhaka, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Chattogram, Khulna, Sylhet, Barishal and Mymensingh, and thousands of Indian cattle will catch your eye.

Rana, a cattle trader at Gabtoli haat, told Jagonews24: "Just walk around the whole of Gabtoli haat and then tell me how many thousand Indian cattle have come to this market. If buyers pay Tk 2.5 lakh for a bullock, they get an animal with 14 or 15 mon of meat. So why would they buy our local cattle?"

At the Mahasthan livestock haat in Bogura on Wednesday (29 July), the vast market was packed with cattle from one end to the other by early afternoon, with no room to spare. But there were very few buyers by comparison. So at the end of the day many farmers sold their cattle at very low prices and went home disappointed, while buyers were happy to get cattle cheaply.

The district livestock office, the market's leaseholder and cattle farmers say that in past years traders bought hundreds of cattle at this qurbani market and took them to Dhaka as well as Chattogram, Sylhet, Feni and other big cities. Many people from neighbouring districts also used to come here to buy sacrificial animals. But this year, with the risk of coronavirus infection, the big traders, dealers and buyers did not come as in previous years, and cattle prices at the market have fallen.

Asmat Ali, a trader at Talgachhi haat in Sirajganj, said there were not even half as many customers as there were cattle at the market. "At the prices buyers are offering, we cannot even think about profit. We are having to sell for less than we paid. We are having to sell cattle at a meat price of Tk 450 to 500."

A livestock market is held every Wednesday at Ashulia, near Dhaka. Traders said the market that opened this Wednesday will run until Eid day.

Korban Ali, a trader at this market, came from Shahjadpur in Sirajganj. "I have never seen the cattle market this slow before. I brought 13 cattle and have been here two days. I cannot sell a single one. Those who are selling are selling at a loss, and I will have to do the same in the end. The kind of cow I sold for Tk 90,000 last year is selling for Tk 70,000 to 75,000 this time," he said.

Dr Abdul Jabbar Sikder, director general of the Department of Livestock Services, told Jagonews24 that because the country's situation is abnormal this year, the number of animals sacrificed will be lower than in other years, as he had said earlier. "But farmers and growers are not getting the prices they should have. Given the situation in the country over the past five months, people's economic condition cannot be good," he said.

Advocate Umme Kulsum, president of the Bangladesh Dairy Development Forum (BDDF), said many people's finances had worsened because of the coronavirus situation. "Speaking as a lawyer, we have 60,000 lawyers. Of them, 20,000 will be able to perform qurbani; the other 40,000 will not. On top of the coronavirus there are the floods. That is why animal prices have fallen this year," she said.

Imran Hossain, general secretary of the BDDF and owner of Sadik Agro Limited, told Jagonews24 the country's economy was not good. "I said earlier that 30 to 35 per cent of people will not be able to perform qurbani this year. People's economic condition is very bad. Those who spent Tk 1 lakh on qurbani last year have this time made a Tk 1 lakh budget among three people. That is why many farmers and growers cannot sell their cattle," he said.

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