Mashiur Rahman Selim, Cumilla (South)

Hundreds of small and family-scale poultry and cattle farms across four upazilas in the greater Laksam area of southern Cumilla are facing a severe risk of permanent closure due to a lack of institutional patronage, acute financial crises, and widespread negligence by local livestock officials.

According to local sources, these farms were initially established at the household level to increase the supply of nutritious meat and eggs while generating sustainable income for low-income families. However, the marginal farmers have been pushed to the brink by the skyrocketing prices of feed, medicine, and electricity. The situation has been further exacerbated by the lingering impacts of last year’s devastating floods, which completely ruined hundreds of farms in the region. Industry insiders noted that chick production companies are also counting massive losses annually due to an uncompetitive and unregulated market structure.

Stakeholders fear that nearly 500 farms in the region are currently on the verge of shutting down, threatening to render hundreds of laborers unemployed. Many debt-ridden farmers who established farms by purchasing feed and medicine on credit have already closed down their operations and gone into hiding after failing to recoup their losses. Meanwhile, most of these rural farms continue to operate haphazardly without mandatory registration or clearance certificates from the environment and health departments.

Taking advantage of the lack of monitoring, unscrupulous traders are openly selling adulterated and low-quality livestock and poultry feed in local markets, while the Upazila Livestock Department maintains a mysterious silence.

Aggrieved farmers alleged that getting medical assistance or medicines for their sick livestock from government offices has become impossible without illicit payments. They claimed that livestock officials are more occupied with their private practices and personal commercial ventures than their official public duties. Farmers also alleged that some officials charge BDT 200 to BDT 500 per home visit, forcing farm owners to buy feed and medicine directly from their personal retail shops.

Moreover , there is a severe lack of official credit facilities; the minor loans occasionally distributed through paper-only cooperatives require hefty kickbacks, providing little to no actual relief to the struggling marginal farmers.