"Oh, what luck! Nobody even asks the price of such a big cow, as big as an elephant." Kushtia cattle trader Abdul Mannan said this in a tone of despair as he stood beside "Shanto", a huge animal weighing an estimated 20 mon, at the qurbani market on the ground of the traditional Rahmatganj football club in Old Dhaka.
He brought only this one animal to the market with high hopes, thinking he would sell it for Tk 5.5 lakh to Tk 6 lakh. But in the past four days no buyer has offered a price worth selling at. So as Eid draws closer, the worry on Abdul Mannan's face grows.
"Taking advantage of the current coronavirus situation, buyers are offering absurd prices. They are bargaining at Tk 2 lakh or Tk 2.5 lakh for a Tk 6 lakh cow. Looking at the situation, profit is a distant dream; I am now worried whether I can even go home with my capital," Mannan told Jagonews24.
Big cattle find few buyers
Abdul Mannan is not alone with a big cow in the market; several other traders like him are worried too. A visit to the market and conversations with traders on Wednesday (29 July) afternoon found that the big cattle priced from Tk 2 lakh to Tk 5-6 lakh were finding no buyers. The few buyers who were bargaining were not offering anything close to the right price. Most buyers at the market were looking for cattle priced from Tk 60,000-70,000 up to Tk 1.2 lakh.
A trader named Haris Mia said that because of the natural disaster of the coronavirus situation, buyers were taking advantage of traders' weakness and offering far less than the cattle's real value. He questioned how far performing qurbani with the aim of profiting from buying cattle was in keeping with Islam and its rules.
During the visit, a few cattle were being sold, but traders with big cattle and their helpers were sitting idle. They hope, however, that the cattle will sell today or tomorrow. If they find a buyer, they will sell with or without some profit, or at cost price. Traders say that if they have to take the cattle home, they will have to pay separately for a vehicle, and keeping and raising them at home will cost extra.
Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.
Comments
(0)