Bangladesh: Animal feed prices soar, dairy farmers a survival fight

Published Apr 16, 2022

Tridge summary

Dairy farmers in Chattogram, Bangladesh, are facing challenges due to significant increases in animal feed prices, with costs rising by 30-40% in the past few months. This situation, coupled with unchanged milk prices and the financial impact of the pandemic, is pushing many farmers towards shutting down their operations. The rising costs of feed, medicine, and labor are straining their profit margins, as the cost of production is higher than the selling price of milk. Factors contributing to the feed price hikes include volatile global markets for crops, interruptions in the global supply chain due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, increased freight costs, and a rise in dollar prices against the taka.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

Mahbubul Alam has been running a dairy farm for five years in Chattogram's Chandanaish area. With gradual profits, he expanded his business; the farm now has 20 cows providing 200 liters of milk per day on an average. However, the soaring animal feed prices amid unchanged milk prices in the market have now led the young entrepreneur to a survival fight. "The feed prices are rising at a time when we are struggling to make a recovery from the pandemic fallouts," Mahbubul Alam told The Business Standard. "How can we survive when our production cost is higher than the milk price," he raised a question, saying that he now had no alternative to shutting down the farm. Mahbubul Alam is one of the thousands of cattle or dairy farmers in the country, who are now fighting to survive the soaring feed prices that went up by 30-40% in the past couple of months. They say they can sell milk at Tk55-60 per liter against Tk60-65 production cost. Visiting the country's largest wholesale commodities ...

Source: TBS