Native breeds and modern technology: an official's case for Bangladesh livestock

On 3 December 2025, a day after Bangladesh closed its first National Livestock Week, Jagonews24 published an analysis of the country's livestock sector by a public relations officer of the Fisheries and Livestock Information Office under the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock. The writer took the week's theme, "Native breeds, modern technology: livestock will prosper", as the title. The argument ran in three parts: breed improvement and technology have transformed cattle and poultry farming within a few decades; native breeds must still be protected as the sector industrialises; and milk, meat and eggs must come within the reach of poor families if the gains are to mean anything for the nation's health. The figures the writer quoted came from the Department of Livestock Services (DLS). This report sets them beside the department's own published tables, reports of the week itself and the reference works on the animals concerned.

Agriculture is the main driver of Bangladesh's economy, the writer began, but livestock matters enormously. Keeping cattle, ducks and chickens is a long tradition of rural life which, over time, has become a firm foundation of the economy, and within a short period the sector has become one of the country's main suppliers of animal protein. In the writer's view it plays a vital part in nutrition security, in building a healthy and intelligent nation, in creating jobs, in social and economic development and in the national economy.

The writer gave the sector's size in DLS figures: 1.81 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a growth rate of 3.19 percent, 16.54 percent of agricultural GDP and a value of Tk 91,036 crore. These are the numbers in the department's "Livestock Economy at a Glance 2024-2025", a one-page summary prepared by the DLS planning section from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data. The sheet marks them as provisional and measures the GDP share, the growth rate and the share of agricultural GDP at constant prices, and the Tk 91,036 crore at current prices. The same sheet puts the sector's direct employment at 20 percent and its partial employment at 50 percent.

The department's table for the years since 2017-18 shows the shape of that growth. Livestock's share of GDP at constant prices was 2.17 percent in 2017-18 and eased year by year to 1.81 percent in 2024-25, because the rest of the economy grew faster, while the sector's own growth rate stayed between 2.90 and 3.19 percent a year. Its value at current prices rose from Tk 39,624 crore in 2017-18 to Tk 67,398 crore in 2021-22 and Tk 91,036 crore in 2024-25. Its share of agricultural GDP moved within a narrow band, from 16.51 percent in 2017-18 to 16.54 percent in 2024-25.

The DLS itself is an old institution. According to Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of Bangladesh, its work began in 1893 with the Civil Veterinary Department of British India, the same year the Bengal Veterinary Institute and Veterinary Hospital were founded. After partition it was reorganised as the Directorate of Animal Husbandry of East Pakistan and in 1960 renamed the Directorate of Livestock Services. Its head office is at Krishi Khamar Sarak, Farmgate, in Dhaka, and its task is to provide veterinary coverage, development and extension services to meet the country's protein needs and to create employment through rearing livestock and poultry.

The stunted, sickly and bony cattle of the 1980s are no longer seen anywhere in the country, the writer wrote, and that change is a bright example of modern management, the commercialisation of livestock, the empowerment of women, employment and a richer rural economy. Livestock has spread from the village to the city. The dreams of hundreds of thousands of educated young people and enterprising families are tied to it, and their labour-intensive investment has given them the means to live with dignity. In rural Bangladesh, keeping cattle, ducks and chickens is a household custom in almost every family and a source of the family's nutrition and income, and, the writer said, thousands of young people are joining the sector every day.

Along the way technology has reached traditional animal husbandry, and modern technology-based commercial farms are expanding steadily. The writer noted that Bangladesh is keeping pace with the developed world in information technology and moving from 4G to 5G mobile networks, and that many farmers now carry smartphones. Information technology is used to monitor the management of poultry and dairy farms and to manage sales. Cameras connected to the internet let a farmer watch the behaviour of cows or chickens from anywhere and act at once if something is wrong. Large farms use Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to control ventilation, temperature and humidity in their sheds from home or office.

Breed improvement for cattle and poultry, appropriate extension services, artificial intelligence and IoT have brought revolutionary change to the sector, the writer argued, and production and productivity have multiplied. As living standards have improved, the number of pet animals and birds kept by households has also grown noticeably.

Banglapedia's entry on livestock lists the same building blocks from the official side: veterinary health and support services, the delivery of veterinary biological products such as vaccines, quality production inputs, extension services and cooperation between the public and private sectors, together with genetic upgrading, artificial insemination and the transfer of technology. It notes that responsibility for developing the sector in Bangladesh is shared by the government, non-government organisations and the private sector.

The writer gave the national herd and flock in DLS figures: about 251.71 lakh cattle, 15.32 lakh buffaloes, 39.81 lakh sheep, 272.91 lakh goats and 4,066.52 lakh poultry. The DLS sheet for 2024-25 gives the same numbers and splits the poultry into 3,360.70 lakh chickens and 705.82 lakh ducks. It puts all ruminants (cattle, buffaloes, sheep and goats) at 579.73 lakh and all livestock and poultry at 4,646.25 lakh. Ten years earlier, in 2015-16, the same table counted 237.85 lakh cattle, 257.66 lakh goats and 3,206.33 lakh poultry.

Production has grown faster than the number of animals. In 1971-72, the first financial year after independence, the country produced 10 lakh tonnes of milk, 5 lakh tonnes of meat and 150 crore eggs, the writer said. In 2024-25, thanks to the investment and effort of countless small, medium and large entrepreneurs and the spread of modern livestock services, it produced about 155 lakh tonnes of milk, 89.54 lakh tonnes of meat and 2,440 crore eggs. The DLS table gives 155.38 lakh tonnes of milk and 2,440.65 crore eggs for that year. It also shows that output did not always rise in a straight line: meat production stood at 61.52 lakh tonnes in 2015-16, reached 92.65 lakh tonnes in 2021-22, fell to 87.10 lakh tonnes in 2022-23, recovered to 92.25 lakh tonnes in 2023-24 and was 89.54 lakh tonnes in 2024-25.

The department also sets production against need. For 2024-25 its sheet puts the demand for milk at 162.33 lakh tonnes, based on 250 millilitres per person a day, against production of 155.38 lakh tonnes, which gives an availability of 239.29 millilitres per person a day. Demand for meat is 77.92 lakh tonnes, based on 120 grams per person a day, against production of 89.54 lakh tonnes and an availability of 137.90 grams. Demand for eggs is 1,850.16 crore, based on 104 eggs per person a year, against production of 2,440.65 crore and an availability of 137.19 eggs per person a year.

Those tables match the writer's reading: the country is self-sufficient in meat and eggs and has had the success it hoped for in milk, though milk output still falls a little short of the department's measure of demand. The writer expected Bangladesh to become self-sufficient in milk as well within a short time, and said the growth in production is securing the country's nutrition, its protein supply and the stability of its food system.

There was a time, the writer recalled, when Bangladesh had to look to a neighbouring country to meet the demand for animals for the Eid ul Adha sacrifice. That picture has changed. For several years in a row, domestic supply has met the whole demand and left animals to spare, and the country has moved from import dependence to a livestock surplus. The festival also brings many kinds of seasonal business into the rural economy, and in the writer's view the lion's share of the money that changes hands in this trade moves from the well-off to people on the margins.

The department's figures for the 2025 Eid show the scale. On 4 May 2025 The Business Standard reported the DLS assessment that 1,24,47,337 animals were ready for sacrifice: 56,02,905 cattle and buffaloes, 68,38,920 goats and sheep and 5,512 other animals. About 20,68,135 animals were expected to be left over, and the fisheries and livestock adviser said there was no need at all to import sacrificial animals.

The sacrifice also supplies much of the raw material for leather, one of the country's main exports. The writer cited the Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA), the tannery owners' body, as saying that about 20 crore of the roughly 30 crore square feet of leather produced each year is exported, earning about Tk 9,600 crore. The writer also cited the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) as putting the domestic market for leather and leather goods at about $3 billion, or about Tk 36,500 crore. The collection, preservation and processing of hides still need modernising, the writer said.

Banglapedia describes how closely the leather trade is tied to the festival. About 40 percent of the country's supply of hides and skins comes from animals slaughtered at Eid ul Adha, with weddings, other celebrations and daily meat consumption supplying the rest. The industry developed on a large scale from the 1970s, and the encyclopedia singles out the black goatskin of Kushtia for its fine grain and tensile strength, one reason the native Black Bengal goat matters to the leather trade as well as to the meat market.

The poultry industry is now the country's second-largest sector for employment, with more than Tk 40,000 crore of private investment, the writer wrote. Bangladesh has 85,227 registered commercial poultry farms and about 1,91,000 marginal farms, and on average about 6.68 crore eggs are produced every day, which the writer called an undoubted success. The fisheries and livestock adviser gave the same figures at the ministry press conference that announced the National Livestock Week, The Daily Star reported on 24 November 2025.

Banglapedia explains why commercial poultry looks so different from the village flock. Local chickens produce relatively little meat and few eggs, so farms large and small have turned to improved breeds such as the White Leghorn, Rhode Island Red and Plymouth Rock, which grow larger than local birds; a White Leghorn hen may lay nearly 230 eggs a year. Quail have also become popular. The domestic chicken descends from the red jungle fowl of Southeast Asia and was probably domesticated more than 4,000 years ago, and the domestic duck descends from the wild mallard.

Feed was also on the agenda. At a seminar held during the week, the fisheries and livestock adviser stressed the need to reduce the sector's dependence on imports, especially of the maize and soybean used in poultry feed, and said those crops should be brought into the country's agriculture through coordinated efforts, UNB reported on 27 November 2025. The adviser also pointed to the difficulties of small poultry farmers and said that solving the feed crisis was crucial to keeping small farms going.

To make these achievements sustainable and to build on them, the writer wrote, the ministry and the DLS organised the National Livestock Week 2025 for the first time, under the theme "Native breeds, modern technology: livestock will prosper". It was observed across the country at central, district and upazila levels at the same time and ended on 2 December 2025. The Daily Star reported on 24 November that the schedule was announced at a press conference at the ministry in the Bangladesh Secretariat, that the programme would include awareness campaigns, rallies, seminars, workshops, exhibitions and a Livestock Awards ceremony, and that under the National Livestock Award Policy 15 individuals and organisations would be honoured in five categories, with gold, silver and bronze medals for the first three places.

The main aim, according to the writer, was to make farmers and entrepreneurs aware of the conservation and development of native breeds, the use of modern information technology, disease prevention, animal health management, the services offered by different government departments, research findings, and the problems and prospects of the sector; in other words, to promote the production of safe animal protein and to create new entrepreneurs. At the press conference, the adviser said the week was expected to promote modern technology, safe food production, entrepreneurship among women and young people, compliance with international standards and stronger coordination between the public and private sectors.

On 27 November, UNB reported, a rally for the week was held at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in Dhaka, followed by a seminar titled "Challenges, Prospects and Way Forward for the Livestock Sector" at the old trade fair ground in Agargaon. The fisheries and livestock secretary, who presided over the seminar, said the week was mainly meant to raise public awareness and encourage new entrepreneurs. The adviser said the government was working towards food self-sufficiency by conserving, developing and producing local breeds of livestock, and urged the authorities to cut imports of unsafe foreign animal products. The writer concluded that programmes of this kind, organised by the government and all the institutions concerned, would help the sector overcome its challenges.

Native livestock is tied not only to productivity, the writer argued, but to rural food needs, storage, women's employment and the heritage of farming. Fisheries and livestock are now treated as industries, yet 70 to 80 percent of production is still in the hands of ordinary rural people. Industrialisation is needed, but the protection of native species must come first, and care must be taken that crossbreeding does not erase the basic traits of native breeds. Native fish, meat and livestock are invaluable resources whose protection is a pressing need; the hopeful point, in the writer's view, is that many animal resources that have died out in other countries still survive in Bangladesh.

Consumers want them too. From the well-off to the poor, the writer said, buyers of meat, eggs and milk all prefer products from native animals, yet these have become hard to find in the market. Two decades ago almost all of the country's animal protein came from native cattle, goats, sheep, buffaloes, ducks and chickens; over time their availability in the market has steadily declined.

Banglapedia notes that no formal cattle breed has been established in Bangladesh, but long natural selection has produced improved indigenous varieties: Pabna cattle, Red Chittagong, Munshiganj cattle and North Bengal Grey, all more productive than the common local cattle. Most of the national herd is non-descript indigenous zebu, humped multipurpose animals that resist diseases and parasites, make good use of low-quality roughage and are adapted to harsh conditions. To raise their output, local cattle have been crossed over the years with Holstein-Friesian, Jersey, Sahiwal, Hariana, Sindhi and other breeds. A Pabna cow can give 3 to 5 litres of milk a day.

Red Chittagong cattle show what is at stake. A 2021 review by scientists of the Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute (BLRI) and the University of Sydney, published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, describes them as small, mostly reddish animals, with mature bulls of about 342 kg and cows of about 180 kg, that give on average 618 litres of milk in a 228-day lactation, with 4.8 percent fat and 3.8 percent protein; the BLRI herd averaged 838 litres. The review cites studies finding subclinical mastitis in about 28 percent of Red Chittagong cows against 56 percent of crossbreds, and fewer gut and blood parasites. A 2018 survey found that 15 percent of cattle in six areas of Chattogram were of this type. The authors name indiscriminate crossbreeding with Holstein and other cattle as the main threat, and note that a government conservation and improvement project for the breed was run by the BLRI from 2007 to 2012.

Among small ruminants the native animal dominates. The Black Bengal goat makes up more than 90 percent of the country's goats, according to Banglapedia: a small black goat, adult bucks weighing 16 to 18 kg and does 12 to 14 kg, that first kids at about 12 months and usually kids twice a year or three times in two years, with meat prized for tenderness and a skin in demand at home and abroad. Most goats are kept by women and children in rural households. The country's native sheep fall into three types, Jamuna basin, Barind and coastal, all of which use low-quality roughage well, suit the hot and humid climate and tolerate common diseases. The BLRI, set up at Savar in 1984, runs selective breeding programmes on Pabna cattle, Black Bengal goats, buffaloes, gayals and semi-scavenging village poultry.

The writer credited the artificial insemination programme with a large part in raising the productivity of native cattle. Native cows are inseminated with semen from improved breeds, and about 42 lakh doses of semen are supplied for this every year. With both government and private organisations involved, the genetic quality and production capacity of the country's cattle are improving day by day, the writer said.

The government has also taken significant steps against animal disease, according to the DLS figures the writer gave: 17 lakh doses of vaccine against lumpy skin disease (LSD), zoning in particular areas to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), and about 6 crore doses of vaccine against peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in goats. The adviser gave the same three measures at the press conference before the week.

Lumpy skin disease is a viral disease of cattle and water buffalo caused by a capripoxvirus, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH). It does not threaten human health but causes heavy losses through fever, firm nodules on the skin, reduced milk yield, weight loss, infertility and damaged hides; it is spread mainly by blood-feeding insects such as biting flies, mosquitoes and ticks. Bangladesh was free of the disease until the middle of 2019, when the first infection was reported to the OIE (now WOAH) from Anwara, Karnaphuli and Patiya upazilas of Chattogram district, according to a study by Hasib and colleagues published in Veterinary Medicine and Science in 2021. In their survey of 3,327 cattle on 19 commercial farms in Chattogram between August and December 2019, about 10 percent showed clinical signs, and crossbred cattle were more likely to be affected than local cattle, though the authors noted that most of the animals sampled were crossbreds.

Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious viral disease of cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and other cloven-hoofed animals, WOAH says. It causes fever and blisters on the mouth, tongue, teats and feet, sharp falls in milk yield and, in young animals, deaths that can reach 20 percent or more. The virus has seven serotypes, each needing its own vaccine. WOAH can recognise freedom from FMD for a whole country or for defined zones within it, which is why zoning is a step towards eradication.

PPR, sometimes called goat plague, is caused by a morbillivirus closely related to the rinderpest virus and affects goats and sheep. It brings high fever, painful sores in the mouth, pneumonia and diarrhoea, and kills many of the animals it infects. Efficient vaccines exist and can give lifelong immunity, and WOAH and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) aim to eradicate the disease worldwide by 2030. Farmers should ask their upazila livestock officer about vaccination schedules for their animals.

Even though Bangladesh has taken its place among the world's leading producers of fish, meat, milk and eggs, 1.5 to 2 crore people in the country still suffer from malnutrition and the number is rising, the writer wrote. Citing the United Nations as saying that at least 10 percent of Bangladesh's people are malnourished, the writer reckoned this at 1.8 crore people if the population is taken as 18 crore, or 2 crore if it is taken as 20 crore, with women and children making up a large part of them.

According to experts, the writer said, an adult needs 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight a day, so a person weighing 75 kg needs 60 to 75 grams of protein daily. Depending on the kind of fish or meat, 100 grams provide 19 to 25 grams of protein; a medium egg provides six to eight grams depending on its size; and 100 millilitres of milk contain 4 to 5 grams.

The writer described protein from animal sources as "first class" protein, containing all the essential amino acids, and protein from plants as "second class", lacking one or more of them. Animal protein is very important for growing children, and milk in particular, the writer said, contains everything the body needs to build itself, while eggs and meat also help. Protein needs vary with age, body weight, health and pregnancy, so readers planning their own or their children's diet should take advice from a doctor or a qualified nutritionist.

Consumption of animal foods is rising, the writer observed, but it must be watched whether it is rising evenly and whether the people who need nutrition are actually getting it through animal protein. The DLS availability figures are national averages per person and do not show how milk, meat and eggs are shared between rich and poor households. Unless the prices of milk, eggs and meat come within the purchasing power of the country's poor, the writer concluded, Bangladesh will never reach the Sustainable Development Goals, and a healthy and talented nation will not be built.

Photo: Kritzolina / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Department of Livestock Services (Livestock Economy at a Glance 2024-2025), The Daily Star, UNB, The Business Standard, Banglapedia, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems (Das et al., 2021), Veterinary Medicine and Science (Hasib et al., 2021), World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH)