The ongoing shutdown has its most disastrous impact on two of the country's key farm sub-sectors - poultry and dairy, though other farm sub-sectors like fisheries and horticulture are also badly affected. The mention of poultry and dairy is particularly important because these sectors, spread out all over the country, are not in a position to stop their daily production schedule and are confronted with almost a halt in marketing their produce. The poultry sector is feared to have incurred losses of more than Tk11.50 billion between March 20 and April 8. As for the dairy, although no estimated amount of loss has yet been put forward, the sector is reeling under shutdown and in the absence of immediate succour it might be too daunting for the sector to survive.
It has been gathered that daily egg production in the country's more than 80,000 poultry farms is 42 million, of which only one third now sells at half the regular price, while rest remain unsold. Daily production of broiler chicken is roughly around 3,500 tonnes, prices of which have drastically slumped to less than 50 per cent due to transportation problems and eventual fall in demand. As regards dairy, daily marketable production of milk from two hundred and fifty thousand farms is 10.50 million litres, of which 2.5 million litres currently remain unsold. Approximately, 4.5 million and 10.5 million workers - directly or indirectly dependent on poultry and dairy respectively - are not only facing severe hardship but risk of job loss too.
This only gives a glimpse of how bad the situation is with two of the country's most prominent farm sectors that grew into prominence over the past two decades on huge investments. Labour-intensive that these are, the two sub-sectors are the pioneers of rural employment on a massive scale. Over and above, meeting increasing domestic demand almost to the point of self-sufficiency is no doubt a huge watershed in not only the rural economy but in the overall economy of the country.
There are scores of problems that have come up following the shutdown. Imported feeds and medicines for both poultry and dairy are lying in the ports. Due to lack of demand, preservation facilities, for example, of milk in pasteurisation plants is not available. As their storage capacity is exhausted, pasteurisation plants have stopped procuring milk. These plants absorb around .60 million litres of the country's daily marketable production of 10.50 million litres of milk. Besides, sweetmeat makers - a major consumer of milk - have also stopped buying milk as they have shut down their business across the country. The picture is grim, much grimmer than perhaps one can perceive. Industry insiders are of the opinion that at the moment there is the critical need to dish out funds, not just in terms of loans on easy terms, but by way of cash subsidy and fiscal incentives so that despite losses these two vital sub-sectors can regain the energy to get up and go. These they say should also include exemption of interests on bank loans for the next six months, exemption of demurrage against the products which could not be delivered immediately from the port.
