Marginal and medium dairy farmers in Rajshahi city and its outskirts need more milk sales points to sustain their businesses.
Golam Rahid, a dairy farmer of Assam Colony area in the city, said after struggling for survival many frustrated farmers closed their businesses. Mainly, they abandoned their businesses due to lack of marketing facilities incurring huge financial losses.
"I face bad situations very often as I fail to sell milk of my dairy farm," the local dairy farmer said while talking to the BSS on Friday.
He started his business after purchasing a cow at a cost of Tk10,000 in 1990. Now, he has 20 cows producing 120 litres of milk every day.
Milk production has been enhanced to a great extent due to high yielding and high breeding cows. He sells milk going at the local's doorsteps, as there is no specific sales point in the city.
By dint of cross breeding, the cows are giving milk 10 times more than the previous times, Golam Rahid said.
"Basically, I was bound to shut down my business due to various reasons, including lack of sales or 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.
"I had established a dairy farm with 15-16 milking cows in 2010, but now I have been suffering a lot," he said, adding that there are a good number of sales points in many areas across the country so why not in Rajshahi.
“For our survival, we need a business-friendly atmosphere where all requisitefacilities will be available,” he added.
Dr Zulfikar Akhter Hossain, district livestock officer, said there are 617 dairy farms having around 1.5 cows in the district. Annual milk production here is around 2.65 lakh tonnes.
He, however, admitted that the number of dairy farms isn't being increased due to lack of adequate marketing scope.
Dr Hemayetul Islam, deputy chief veterinary officer of the Department of
Veterinary and Animal Sciences in Rajshahi University (RU), opined substantial and sustainable promotion of dairy farming is very important for removing the existing protein deficiency of the people along with decreasing the poverty rate in the region.
So, administrations including local government entities should come forward to establish more selling points to encourage many entrepreneurs to invest in the sector, Dr Hemayetul Islam added.
