"Hello, where have you gone? I'm really hungry. Eat quickly and come back. When you're here I'll go and grab something."

Md Mamun, a trader who brought cattle from Dinajpur to Shonir Akhra in Dhaka, was speaking on the phone. It was a quarter to 11 on Eid day, Thursday (28 May), and he had eaten nothing and not slept the night before. He said he would eat something decent, sleep, and then head home with his cattle.

Mamun had brought 80 cows from Dinajpur for Eid-ul-Adha. Taking losses of Tk 2,000 to Tk 5,000 a head, he sold 32 over four or five days, but 48 went unsold. He will hire lorries to take them back to Dinajpur.

At the Kajla and Shonir Akhra markets in Jatrabari that day, the grounds were deserted apart from a few traders and herders, some asleep, some dozing where they sat. Sacks of bran, straw and grass lay beside them, while some cows lay down and others stood. When a buyer came by, one trader paid no attention. "He won't buy a cow; he'll just offer a low price," he said.

Traders at the market said that even after buying cattle at high prices and selling at a loss, they could not please buyers, who wanted cows for next to nothing. "It seems a cow has no value at all," they said.

Mamun told Jago News: "I brought 80 cows to the market on 21 May, with 11 people to look after them. Eating, bathing, even using the toilet costs money. Here it is all expense and no profit. I couldn't sell a single cow on Tuesday, Wednesday or this morning, Eid day. Before that I had sold 32."

"I brought them in four lorries, 20 cows each, at Tk 20,000 a lorry," he said. "After standing all this time the cows are tired, so on the way back they'll have to lie down. Only 16 can go on each lorry, so I'll need three lorries. But I can't find lorries for hire properly."

Asked why buyers were offering so little, traders said they did not know, but it seemed people had less money and fewer were giving Qurbani than before.

Pointing to a black bull lying in the row, Mamun said: "I bought this one at a Dinajpur market for Tk 1.4 lakh. Here the highest offer was Tk 80,000. How can I sell at such a low price? So I'm taking it back to the village, even at a loss."

Nearby, Sanowar from Munshiganj was loading unsold cows onto a lorry. He had bought 10 cows wholesale in Kurigram, but not one sold, so he was taking them to his home in Munshiganj. "Buyers didn't even make an offer. Since we couldn't sell them, we're taking the cows to our village home," he told Jago News.

A trader from Karimganj in Kishoreganj told Jago News: "I brought 19 and sold nine. I'm taking the other 10 home. These cows still have only two teeth, so they'll grow bigger and fetch a better price. The loss is done. Lorry hire is Tk 2,000 per cow, and now it costs money to take them back too."

Md Hasan brought 30 cows from Bhola and sold 19; he went home with the other 11. "On the way here we waited for hours at the Ilisha ferry ghat in terrible conditions to cross. Then in Dhaka there was the rain. I brought sand in a lorry myself to fill the ground and make space for the cows. The sand was Tk 3,000 and the tarpaulin Tk 5,000. Four of us herders came, and with food and everything the loss is heavy: Tk 3,000 to Tk 10,000 per cow," he told Jago News.

Traders got good prices early on at the capital's cattle markets this year, but the final days were deeply disappointing for sellers. Many traders and farmers sold at a loss after failing to get the prices they wanted, and many went home with unsold animals.

Buyers, on the other hand, were smiling, able to buy the animals they wanted at much lower prices thanks to the late slump.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.