Dairy farm in Rajshahi. Photo: BSS

By Md Aynal Haque

RAJSHAHI, Feb 1, 2025 (BSS) - Proper marketing channel can be the crucial means of encouraging the dairy farmers in the region, including its vast Barind tract, to the venture more. 

In nature and practice since the immemorial times, the region is enriched with dairy farming along with other rearing and fattening cattle, goat and poultry birds as the grassroots people are still more or less dependent on those for their livelihood.

Eventually, over a couple of decades, commercial dairy farming increased side by side with the domestic ones to a greater extent amid the gradually mounting demands of animal proteins.

Marginal and medium dairy farmers need proper milk marketing scope to make their business profitable and sustainable together with boosting the dairy sector.

Talking to BSS, Prof Jalal Uddin Sarder of the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at Rajshahi University (RU) said there is an urgent need to establish marketing points of milk so that the dairy farmers can sell their product easily.

Disseminating his expertise on the issue he said many of the farmers became disheartened, failing to sell milk on time and finally abandoned their business.

He, however, opined that boosting milk production and its consumption is very effective in eradicating the malnutrition that can stem corona spread.

In addition to meeting the nutritional deficit especially meat and milk demand, the livestock sector has a laudable contribution to enriching the soil nutrients which are declining gradually due to indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and harmful pesticides.

He revealed that production of huge amounts of meat through the indigenous beef cattle improvement would supply low-cost meat for people and it will ultimately protect them from malnutrition.

Golam Rahid, a dairy farmer of Assam Colony area in the city, said dairy farming has now become essential in terms of fulfilling protein demands but expensive due to price-hiking of cow's feed items, medicines and other requisite inputs.
 
After struggling for survival many frustrated farmers closed their businesses due to financial hardship. But, their cow sheds and other infrastructures remained empty till now in intact condition. Mainly, they abandoned their business due to a lack of marketing facilities incurring huge financial losses.
 
Some others are now operating their business with multiple problems. "I have to face embarrassing situations frequently when I fail to sell my regular produced milk," the local dairy farmer said while talking to BSS here on Saturday.

 He started his business after purchasing a cow at a cost of Taka 10,000 in 1990. Now, he has 20 cows producing 120 liters of milk every day.

Amidst the arrangement of high-breeding cows, milk production has been enhanced to a great extent. He sells milk at the local's doorsteps as there is no specific selling point in the city.

 Artificial insemination of cows is gaining popularity in the region following significant achievements in improving the breeding system.
Artificial insemination is a process of collecting sperm cells from a male animal and manually depositing them into the reproductive tract of a female.

 By dint of cross-breeding, the cows are giving milk 10 times more than the previous record, Golam Rahid added.

 "Basically, I was bound to shut down my business due to various reasons including lack of marketing scope," said Zuber Mian, also a dairy farmer, who shut down his venture around six months back.

 Masudul Haque, another dairy farmer, said there were more than 30,000 small and marginal dairy farms in the region around 20 years back but the number has been reduced to limited ones at present.

 However, the region has an enormous opportunity to meet the existing protein deficiency of the local people through boosting the sector.

"I had established a dairy farm with 15/16 milking cows in 2010, but now have been suffering a lot," he said, adding that there are a good number of selling points in many areas across the country so why not in Rajshahi.

 For our survival, we need a business-friendly atmosphere where all requisite facilities will be available, he appealed.
 
Dr Atwar Rahman, district livestock officer, said 617 dairy farms have around 1.5 cows in the district. Annual milk production here is around 2.65 lakh tonnes.
    
He, however, said the number of dairy farms isn't being increased due to lack of adequate marketing scope.