Eid cattle markets during pandemic: A six-point guideline for Bangladesh

Published 10 Jul,2020 via The Financial Express - "If I fail to sell my cattle this Eid, I'm going to suffer a devastating loss. I've already invested so much in this business. It's going to be hard for me to provide for my family," lamented Mokbul Mollah, a cattle farmer from Faridpur who I talked with a few days ago.

Mokbul sold nine heads of cattle for Eid-ul-Adha last year and made a profit of BDT 270,000. He then took out a loan of BDT 500,000 and reared 17 cattle to sell those during this year's Eid-ul-Adha. In absence of clear guidance and, worse, due to misinformation floating around about Eid-ul-Adha markets in the midst of Covid-19, Mokbul now fears the worst.

Over half a million farmers in Bangladesh rear beef-cattle for Eid-ul-Adha every year as a major income-generating activity, and this year, they are fearing a bleak market prospect due to Covid-19. In 2019, around 11.8 million livestock were reared across the country mainly to be sold as sacrificial animals and this year too, the forecast for sales was indicated to be similar.