Madaripur woman Nusrat Jahan Sathi builds a living raising cattle for Eid-ul-Azha

Nusrat Jahan Sathi, who lives in the Syedarbali area of Madaripur town, raises cattle only for Eid-ul-Azha and has become self-reliant by selling them in the sacrifice season, Jagonews24 reported on 2 May 2026. She hopes that, seeing her, more women will take steps to stand on their own feet.

Sathi is the daughter of Samchul Haque Bepari of Rajdi in Kalkini upazila, Madaripur. After marrying Kazi Emarat Hossain of Syedarbali, she found that her father-in-law kept cattle, and that encouraged her to start rearing cattle herself in 2019. With her husband's help she built a large farm in front of the house and named it Amira Dairy Farm.

She began with ten cattle. With little experience, she lost several of them that first year and made a loss, but she did not give up. The next year she bought cattle again ahead of the Eid of sacrifice, and the herd grew from there. The animals are sold every year when Eid-ul-Azha comes. At the 2024 Eid she sold 35 cattle, each for Tk 2 lakh to Tk 3 lakh. By her account she has sold more than Tk 1 crore worth of cattle so far, at a good profit.

Sathi said her three children are all young, the youngest just two, so she cannot give the farm enough time, and she has found no one to help with the work. That is why she had fewer cattle in 2026. At the time of the report there were nine on the farm, three of which she had given to another farmer to rear. She plans to build the herd up again once the children are a little older.

Beside the cattle shed she also keeps 80 ducks, 40 chickens and 20 pairs of pigeons.

"When several cattle died in the first year I was heartbroken, but I didn't give up," Sathi said. "The next year I bought more cattle and started again. They feel like my own children, and they have to be cared for like children. It takes a lot of hard work. I dream of becoming a big entrepreneur. I hope that seeing me, other women will also take the initiative to become self-reliant, not just do household work."

Madaripur is a district of Dhaka Division, and Kalkini is one of its five upazilas. Around ten rivers, among them the Padma and the Arial Khan, run through the district, which had a population of 1,293,027 in the 2022 census.

Mahmuda Akter Kona, a retired deputy director of the Department of Women Affairs in Madaripur, said Sathi had become a self-reliant and successful woman entrepreneur through her own hard work and confidence, and that many would be inspired by her to set up cattle farms. Nurunnahar Jui, president of the women's development organisation Nakshi Kantha, said rearing cattle is very hard work and success comes only after great effort, which is why men mostly do it and women are seldom seen in it. In her view Sathi is an example of a woman entrepreneur in society.

According to the Department of Livestock Services, 9,136,734 animals were sacrificed in Bangladesh at Eid-ul-Azha in 2025: 4,705,106 cattle and buffaloes and 4,430,668 goats and sheep. Some 3,310,603 animals went unsold that year. In 2024, 10,408,918 animals had been sacrificed.

For the 2024-25 fiscal year the department put the country's cattle at 251.71 lakh head, ducks at 705.82 lakh and chickens at 3,360.70 lakh. It puts direct employment in the livestock sector at 20 percent and partial employment at 50 percent.

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

Sources: Jagonews24, Department of Livestock Services (DLS), Prothom Alo, Wikipedia