Policy Will Be Framed to Control Animal Feed Prices, Livestock Adviser Says

A policy will be framed to control the price of animal feed, Fisheries and Livestock Adviser Farida Akhter said on Monday, 24 November 2025, adding that the government had already moved to lower the price of electricity used in the sector so that feed would cost less. She was answering reporters' questions at a press conference in the conference room of the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock at the Secretariat in Dhaka, called to announce National Livestock Week 2025, which was to run across the country from 26 November to 2 December.

Feed is the largest single cost in rearing broilers, laying hens, dairy cows, beef cattle, goats and farmed fish. The adviser put it at 70 per cent of farmers' costs, with electricity and other expenses on top. Her remarks came two months after farmers' groups had publicly complained that feed prices stayed high even though the prices of maize and soybean cake, the two main raw materials, had fallen.

Asked how feed prices could be brought down, the adviser began with the cost structure of a farm. Seventy per cent of a farmer's spending goes on animal feed, she said, and electricity and other items come on top of that. The government's first step, therefore, had been on power. "We have taken an initiative to reduce the price of electricity. It has progressed a long way, and we hope we can bring it down," she said.

Lower costs, she argued, would feed through to the price farmers pay. "If costs fall, the main price will automatically fall. We are trying to reduce the price of feed," she told the press conference. She did not give a date for the electricity decision or say by how much the tariff for the sector might fall, and the report carried no figure for the planned cut.

Reporters then pointed out that poultry feed had not become a single paisa cheaper even though the price of maize had fallen. The adviser replied that people in the feed industry often set prices as they themselves see fit. The government, she said, would have to draw up a policy on the matter, and that policy would set how far the companies could take their prices. "We think this must be brought under regulation," she said.

She did not describe the form the policy would take, whether a ceiling, a pricing formula or a monitoring system, or when it would be drafted. Claiming that the present government had taken much of the work in the sector forward, she said the next government would carry it on and people would see the results early in that government's term, adding that none of this was work any government could finish in a day.

The question put to the adviser echoed a dispute that had been in the press for weeks. On 24 September 2025 The Financial Express reported that, despite a record maize harvest and a glut of soybean cake in storage, animal and poultry feed remained expensive. Maize and soybean cake prices had fallen to their lowest levels in five years, according to the Bangladesh Vegetable Oil Refiners and Vanaspati Manufacturers Association and the Bangladesh Poultry Association, the paper said.

The president of the Bangladesh Poultry Association accused leading feed companies of keeping prices artificially high. He told the paper that feed prices had not changed although maize had fallen by 20 per cent and soybean cake by 70 per cent, and alleged that companies were making an extra Tk 10 a kilogram above their usual margin. He also said the companies had sharply raised prices after the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022 and had not lowered them since. At the time, according to the report, poultry feed cost Tk 60 to 75 a kilogram, fish feed Tk 58 to 65 and dairy feed Tk 65 to 80.

The feed makers gave their side in the same report. A senior vice president of the Feed Industries Association of Bangladesh (FIAB) said a large share of raw materials still had to be imported, and that a new 5 per cent advance income tax on imports, the rising dollar rate and higher bank interest costs made further price cuts difficult. FIAB estimated that more than 300 factories met 99 per cent of the country's feed demand, in a market worth Tk 400 billion a year.

The scale of demand was set out by officials in the same article. A deputy director of the Department of Livestock Services (DLS) said Bangladesh had more than 450 million livestock, poultry and fish, most of which depended on feed and together consumed around 6.0 million tonnes a year. The Department of Fisheries said the country produced more than 2.6 million tonnes of farmed fish a year, needing about 1.0 million tonnes of feed. An agricultural economist quoted in the report said local maize and soybean cake now met more than 85 per cent of the raw material demand, urged companies to adjust their prices and called on the fisheries and livestock ministry to regulate the feed market.

The United States Department of Agriculture's office in Dhaka described the industry in its Grain and Feed Annual for Bangladesh, published on 31 March 2025. Citing the Feed Industry Association Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Poultry Industries Central Council, it said 150 feed companies together produced 7.5 million tonnes of commercial feed a year, and that many unregistered companies produced around another 500,000 tonnes. About 70 per cent of the total was poultry feed; the rest was aqua and cattle feed.

Poultry feed relies mainly on maize, the report said, while aqua and cattle feed use soybean meal along with some maize. Other common ingredients are fish meal, distillers' dried grains with solubles (DDGS), extruded full-fat soybeans, broken rice, rice polish, rapeseed or mustard meal, corn gluten meal, coarse limestone and de-oiled rice bran. Companies customise their formulas for poultry, fish and dairy cattle, and the ratio changes with the cost and availability of ingredients. Feed industry contacts gave the USDA office these typical shares in commercial feed:

• Maize: 50 to 65 per cent of poultry feed and 10 to 15 per cent of aqua feed
• Soybean meal: 20 to 30 per cent of poultry feed and 25 to 35 per cent of aqua feed
• De-oiled rice bran: 5 to 15 per cent of poultry feed and 10 to 15 per cent of aqua feed
• DDGS: 5 to 10 per cent of poultry feed and 5 to 15 per cent of aqua feed
• Rice polish or bran: 5 to 10 per cent in both
• Wheat flour: 3 to 5 per cent of poultry feed and 5 to 8 per cent of aqua feed
• Fish meal: 2 to 5 per cent of poultry feed and 8 to 20 per cent of aqua feed

The same report noted that many local layer farms mix their own feed from locally bought maize and premix, and that most small and medium dairy farms prefer handmade feed to commercial concentrate. On prices, it said industry contacts reported a slight fall from the previous year, helped by a steadier dollar exchange rate and stable world prices of the main ingredients. In February 2025 poultry feed sold at Tk 56,000 to 62,000 a tonne, six per cent lower than a year earlier, and aqua and cattle feed at Tk 60,000 to 65,000 a tonne.

Maize is the second-largest grain crop in Bangladesh after rice in both area and production, according to the USDA report, and about 90 per cent of the crop goes to the feed industry, with the rest processed into starch. Winter maize, sown in November and December and harvested in March and April, accounts for about 85 per cent of output; summer maize is planted in March and April and harvested from August to September. Based on the Department of Agricultural Extension's data, the report estimated the 2024/25 crop at 5.7 million tonnes from 650,000 hectares.

The main growing districts are in the north and north-west, including Lalmonirhat, Thakurgaon, Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Rangpur, Kurigram, Bogura, Jamalpur, Chuadanga, Natore, Kushtia, Meherpur and Jhenaidah, and the crop has spread to some coastal districts and to riverbanks and char lands. Farmers use hybrid varieties that can yield more than 10 tonnes a hectare with proper care, the report said, and fall armyworm is the main pest.

Bangladesh also buys maize abroad. The USDA office estimated 2024/25 imports at 1.6 million tonnes, mostly from Brazil, which had overtaken India as the leading supplier, and noted that the government had removed all import tariffs on maize to support the feed industry. In February 2025 maize sold at Tk 34.49 a kilogram wholesale and Tk 38.47 retail, according to the Department of Agricultural Marketing figures in the report.

By the autumn, prices had come down further after the harvest. The Financial Express reported in September 2025 that maize traded at Tk 20 to 26 a kilogram in the May-June harvest season and at Tk 35 to 36 in September, against Tk 38 to 42 a year earlier. Soybean cake had dropped to Tk 47 to 48 a kilogram from Tk 65 to 70 in 2024, an edible oil company director told the paper, and the refiners' association put soybean and rapeseed cake output at more than 4.0 million tonnes against demand of about 2.2 million tonnes. This was the gap between raw material prices and feed prices that reporters raised with the adviser.

Feed in Bangladesh is regulated by the Fish Feed and Animal Feed Act, 2010 (Act No. 2 of 2010), passed on 28 January 2010, which replaced an ordinance of 2008. Under the Act the Director General of the Department of Fisheries is the controlling authority for fish feed and the Director General of the Department of Livestock Services for animal feed. Its main provisions are:

• No one may produce, process, import, export, market, sell or distribute fish or animal feed without a licence (section 4), and a licence is valid for one year and must be renewed (section 7).
• The government sets standards for the ingredients of commercially produced feed by rules, and following them is compulsory; a mill whose feed fails the standards or contains harmful material can lose its licence (section 10).
• Officials may take samples of imported or locally made feed at any stage and have them tested in a quality-control laboratory (section 11).
• Feed must be sold in sealed, airtight packs labelled with the maker's name and country, registration number, net weight, ingredients and nutrients with their percentages, lot number, the animal or fish it is for, and the dates of manufacture and expiry (section 13).
• Antibiotics, growth hormones, steroids, pesticides and other harmful chemicals may not be used in fish or animal feed (section 14).
• Offences are punishable with up to one year in prison, a fine of up to Tk 50,000, or both (section 20).

The Animal Feed Rules, 2013, issued on 15 September 2013, were made under the Act, according to the Department of Livestock Services' list of laws. The Act deals with licensing, quality, labelling and banned substances; it contains no provision on what feed may cost. That is the gap the adviser referred to when she said prices had to be brought "under regulation" through a new policy.

At the same press conference the adviser set out the size of the sector. At constant prices, she said, livestock contributes 1.81 per cent of gross domestic product, its growth rate is 3.19 per cent and its share of agricultural GDP is 16.58 per cent; in money terms livestock GDP stands at Tk 91,036 crore. The sector, she said, sustains the rural economy, contributes directly to national growth and is a growing force in employment and nutrition security.

The Department of Livestock Services works mainly to ensure a safe supply of eggs, milk and meat, she said, so the development of poultry, dairy and meat-producing cattle and birds is its main aim. The poultry industry has become the country's second-largest source of employment after garments, with private investment of more than about Tk 40,000 crore. She counted 85,227 registered commercial poultry farms and about 1.91 lakh farms at the marginal level, which had created a large number of entrepreneurs over the past decade, and said the country produces an average of about 6.68 crore eggs a day.

The department's own statistics give a wider picture. Its Livestock Economy at a Glance for 2023-24, the edition the USDA office cited, put milk production at 150.44 lakh tonnes against a demand of 158.78 lakh tonnes, meat production at 92.25 lakh tonnes against a demand of 76.21 lakh tonnes, and egg production at 2,374.97 crore against a demand of 1,809.60 crore. It counted 250.13 lakh cattle, 15.24 lakh buffaloes, 39.03 lakh sheep, 271.17 lakh goats, 3,277.77 lakh chickens and 682.61 lakh ducks, and put livestock's share of direct employment at 20 per cent and of partial employment at 50 per cent.

The department itself dates back to 1893, when a Civil Veterinary Department was set up under British rule, according to Banglapedia; it was reorganised as the Directorate of Animal Husbandry of East Pakistan after the partition and the Directorate of Livestock Services in 1960, and is headquartered at Farmgate in Dhaka. Banglapedia also notes that the White Leghorn, whose hens may lay nearly 230 eggs a year, is the most popular layer breed in the country. High-producing birds of this kind eat compound feed every day, which is why its price weighs so heavily on egg and broiler farmers.

The press conference was called to announce the programme of National Livestock Week 2025, the first ever held in the country, under the theme "Indigenous breeds, modern technology: progress in livestock". It was to be observed simultaneously at central, district and upazila level from 26 November to 2 December, with livestock awards, awareness campaigns, rallies, discussions, seminars, workshops and exhibitions, BSS reported on the day.

The week had a short history. On 12 October 2025 BSS reported that the ministry had decided to hold it in the third week of November, after the government gave approval in principle on 9 October 2025 to observing the middle of every November as National Livestock Week, with the aim of highlighting the sector, involving its stakeholders and increasing public participation in livestock development.

According to the programme BSS published on 18 November 2025, the week was to open on 26 November at the Bangladesh-China Friendship Conference Centre with the presentation of the National Livestock Awards 2025, followed the same day by a livestock exhibition and food festival at the old trade fair ground in Dhaka. A road rally and a seminar on the sector's problems and prospects were set for 27 November, a research and technology seminar for 28 November, a discussion on diversifying livestock products and raising exports for 29 November, mobile publicity for 30 November, and a meeting with young and women entrepreneurs for 1 December, with the closing at the Krishibid Institution on 2 December. Districts and upazilas were to hold exhibitions, rallies and free vaccination and veterinary camps for cattle and poultry.

The adviser said 15 medals would be given in five categories under the National Livestock Award policy, with gold, silver and bronze for the first, second and third places in each category.

Disease control took up the last part of the adviser's briefing. To control lumpy skin disease (LSD), which had recently emerged in cattle, about 17 lakh doses of vaccine were being given in the field, she said. As part of zoning to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), vaccination was under way in Sirajganj, Pabna, Manikganj and Bhola. And against peste des petits ruminants (PPR), a deadly contagious disease of goats, about 6 crore doses of vaccine had recently been administered in the field.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) describes lumpy skin disease as a capripoxvirus infection that causes disease only in cattle and water buffalo. It brings fever and firm skin nodules, typically on the head, neck and udder, along with a marked fall in milk yield, weight loss, infertility and damaged hides; morbidity is usually 10 to 20 per cent and mortality generally 1 to 5 per cent. It is thought to spread mainly through biting flies, mosquitoes and ticks, and over long distances through the movement and trade of infected animals. WOAH says the disease poses no risk to people, and lists Bangladesh among the places it has reached since 2000.

Foot-and-mouth disease, in WOAH's description, is a severe and highly contagious viral disease of cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and other cloven-hoofed animals, caused by a virus with seven serotypes. It produces fever and blister-like sores on the tongue, lips, mouth, teats and feet, and cuts milk production; it is rarely fatal in adult animals, but mortality is often high in young ones. The virus is carried in breath, milk, semen and all secretions, and on vehicles, feed, clothing and equipment. FMD was the first disease for which WOAH set up official recognition of disease-free status, which countries may hold for their whole territory or for defined zones, the approach behind the zoning work the adviser described.

PPR is caused by a morbillivirus closely related to the rinderpest virus and affects goats, sheep, some of their wild relatives and camels, WOAH says. First reported in Ivory Coast in 1942, it is now present in more than 70 countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Sick animals have high fever, eye and nose discharges and painful mouth sores that stop them eating, with pneumonia and diarrhoea, and death is a frequent outcome. A vaccine that gives life-long immunity is available, and WOAH and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have set the goal of eradicating PPR worldwide by 2030 under a strategy endorsed in 2015.

The adviser linked the vaccination drive to trade. Saudi Arabia is a big market for meat exports, she said, but it does not take meat if lumpy skin disease is present. "To increase meat exports, we want to strengthen our vaccination programme further," she said.

Photo: Khairuzzaman / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Sources: Jagonews24; The Daily Star Bangla (BSS report, 24 November 2025); Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), 12 October and 18 November 2025; The Financial Express, 24 September 2025; USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Bangladesh Grain and Feed Annual 2025; Department of Livestock Services, Livestock Economy at a Glance 2023-24 and list of laws; Fish Feed and Animal Feed Act, 2010; World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH); Banglapedia.