Asmat Ali Gain, a farmer from Hurgati village in Bhojgati union of Manirampur upazila, Jashore, was preparing to take his huge black bull "Banglar Boss-5" to Dhaka's Gabtoli cattle market ahead of Eid-ul-Azha in 2025. According to a Jagonews24 report of 1 June 2025, the Friesian bull weighed about 30 maunds and measured 65 inches in height and 96 inches in length. The farmer was asking Tk 12 lakh for it and said he would take it to Gabtoli within a day or two.
Bangladesh's National Moon Sighting Committee set Eid-ul-Azha that year for 7 June. Manirampur is an upazila of Jashore district made up of a municipality and 17 unions, Bhojgati among them.
A line of named bulls
Asmat Ali said he had sold "Banglar Boss-4" at Gabtoli the previous year for Tk 15 lakh. For the 2025 Eid market he prepared six bulls, all bound for Gabtoli, and hoped again to get the prices he wanted.
He had been taking bulls to Gabtoli for several years, naming them Banglar Boss, Banglar Samrat and Jolhosti. The first bull he raised and took there was Banglar Boss-1, and the series had reached Banglar Boss-5. He had earlier sold Jolhosti-1 and Jolhosti-2. That year another bull was going under a new name, Banglar Samrat, weighing 25 maunds, with an asking price of Tk 10 lakh.
The Holstein Friesian breed originated in the Netherlands and Germany. The black-and-white cattle are known above all for high milk yields, and mature bulls usually weigh 680 to 770 kg.
From rickshaw puller to dairy farmer
The report gave Asmat Ali's age as 39. As a teenager he pulled a rickshaw and sold peanuts for a living. His business is mainly dairy; besides the bulls he has 25 cows and calves. The farm began with just two cattle; over the previous four to five years it had kept 45 to 60 head in three sheds. He said that from one decimal of ancestral land he had come to own 171 decimals.
Asmat Ali said he started rearing and trading cattle on borrowed money in 2004, but most of the profit went to those who had put up the capital. In debt, he went to Dhaka that year and pulled a rickshaw for about two years. When he came home after his father died, his uncles advised him to stay and rear cattle. He resumed buying, raising and selling cattle in 2006, and the farm was running in full by 2008, when selling milk was his main income alongside cattle sales.
His wife, Ferdousi Begum, works with him. She said the sheds are cleaned and the cattle fed three times a day: grass and straw mixed with oilcake in the morning, and boiled broken rice with maize meal and molasses at noon and night. Asmat Ali put the feed cost at Tk 500 to 550 per animal a day. He said he gives a sick animal first aid from his own experience; for animal illness, farmers should seek the advice of the upazila livestock office.
A call for support and the livestock office's reply
Asmat Ali said that if the government stood by small farmers, they too could raise high-quality bulls and help meet the country's demand for meat. He complained that although his bulls had become well known, livestock officials had never visited his farm.
Manirampur upazila livestock officer Dr Md Touhidul Islam said the upazila is large and his office is short of staff (six people), which makes it hard to reach every farm and household. Even so, he said, farms and cattle keepers receive advice and support.
Citing estimates of the Department of Livestock Services and the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, The Daily Star reported on 29 May 2025 that 1,24,47,337 sacrificial animals were available that year, including 56,02,905 cattle and buffaloes, with an expected surplus of about 20,68,135 animals. The same report found few buyers at Gabtoli; those who did buy paid Tk 15,000 to Tk 20,000 more than the year before for similarly sized bulls, which traders and farmers put down to the rising cost of feed.
Photo: Wasiul Bahar / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sources: Jagonews24, The Daily Star, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), Wikipedia
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