UNB, Dhaka :
Reducing dependent on Indian cattle for meeting demand of sacrificial animals during Eid-ul-Azha, Bangladesh is now planning a large-scale export of cattle meat as local farms have staged a ‘quiet revolution’ in animal husbandry.
Officials at the Department of Livestock Services (DLS) said they have taken various steps to boost the cattle meat export since the country’s number of surplus cattle has been growing significantly over the last few years with over 10 lakh this year alone.
Experts think India’s ban on cattle export has encouraged many farmers, traders and unemployed educated youths to take up cattle farming to steadily turn the crisis into an opportunity to attain cattle autarky.
“We’ve over 10 lakh surplus cattle this year meeting the huge demand of sacrificial animals during this Eid. We had also huge surplus cattle in the last three years,” DLS Director General Hiresh Ranjan Bhowmik told UNB.
He said around 26 lakh cows entered Bangladesh from India in 2012, but with the rise in local production it continued to decline gradually. “In the last seven months of this year, only 92,000 cows were brought from India and Myanmar. People also now don’t want to buy Indian cattle. Our goat population is increasing substantially.”
The DLS DG, however, feared that there will an imbalance between the production and demand if the country does not go for a large-scale export of cattle meat with the growing local production.
“We now export cattle meat on a very small-scale by two farms– Bengal Meat and Deshi Meat. We’ve some drawbacks to boost our export as we still couldn’t fulfill some WTO conditions. One of the conditions is to free the entire country or its some zones from hand-foot-and-mouth, or HFMD disease of the cattle,” the DLS DG said.
He said the two companies now collect cows for beef export only from three upazilas in Pabna as those were announced free from HFMD. “We’re now going to declare four districts–Sirajganj, Pabna, Manikganj and Bhola–free from the disease through mass vaccination and other activities to boost the export.”
For the export, Hiresh said, there is another condition of having an international standard quality control laboratory for testing meat and other animal derivatives. “We’ve already established such a laboratory in Savar which will go into operation in January next.”
He said they also have to complete some other process to get a certificate from The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and they are working on it. “Once we get a certificate from OIE, WTO will accept it, paving the way for boosting the export.”
AFM Asif, the chief executive officer of Bengal Meat, said they are now exporting meat on a small-scale to Middle East countries and the Maldives around 12 to 25 tonnes a month.
He said Bangladesh has the huge scope to boom its meat export across the world and grab a large share of global halal meat market.
Reducing dependent on Indian cattle for meeting demand of sacrificial animals during Eid-ul-Azha, Bangladesh is now planning a large-scale export of cattle meat as local farms have staged a ‘quiet revolution’ in animal husbandry.
Officials at the Department of Livestock Services (DLS) said they have taken various steps to boost the cattle meat export since the country’s number of surplus cattle has been growing significantly over the last few years with over 10 lakh this year alone.
Experts think India’s ban on cattle export has encouraged many farmers, traders and unemployed educated youths to take up cattle farming to steadily turn the crisis into an opportunity to attain cattle autarky.
“We’ve over 10 lakh surplus cattle this year meeting the huge demand of sacrificial animals during this Eid. We had also huge surplus cattle in the last three years,” DLS Director General Hiresh Ranjan Bhowmik told UNB.
He said around 26 lakh cows entered Bangladesh from India in 2012, but with the rise in local production it continued to decline gradually. “In the last seven months of this year, only 92,000 cows were brought from India and Myanmar. People also now don’t want to buy Indian cattle. Our goat population is increasing substantially.”
The DLS DG, however, feared that there will an imbalance between the production and demand if the country does not go for a large-scale export of cattle meat with the growing local production.
“We now export cattle meat on a very small-scale by two farms– Bengal Meat and Deshi Meat. We’ve some drawbacks to boost our export as we still couldn’t fulfill some WTO conditions. One of the conditions is to free the entire country or its some zones from hand-foot-and-mouth, or HFMD disease of the cattle,” the DLS DG said.
He said the two companies now collect cows for beef export only from three upazilas in Pabna as those were announced free from HFMD. “We’re now going to declare four districts–Sirajganj, Pabna, Manikganj and Bhola–free from the disease through mass vaccination and other activities to boost the export.”
For the export, Hiresh said, there is another condition of having an international standard quality control laboratory for testing meat and other animal derivatives. “We’ve already established such a laboratory in Savar which will go into operation in January next.”
He said they also have to complete some other process to get a certificate from The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and they are working on it. “Once we get a certificate from OIE, WTO will accept it, paving the way for boosting the export.”
AFM Asif, the chief executive officer of Bengal Meat, said they are now exporting meat on a small-scale to Middle East countries and the Maldives around 12 to 25 tonnes a month.
He said Bangladesh has the huge scope to boom its meat export across the world and grab a large share of global halal meat market.
