Impact of COVID-19 on Dairy Farming Sector of Noakhali, Bangladesh.

Abstract

The COVID-19 has affected the livestock sector very badly. It has created many negative impact on dairy farming sector of Bangladesh. This study was performed at Noakhali sadar upazilla aiming to identify the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the commercial dairy farming. To satisfy the intention 60 dairy farms of the upazila were selected for the study. It reveals that the farmers were experienced so many difficulties and farms were in underperforming condition and undergo minimum to maximum losses. Among all the 60 farms 73% farms were running throughout the study time, 13% farms were temporarily closed and 13% farms were permanently closed. 83% farms experienced lack of demand of their farm products (milk) in the market which leads them to sell their products in a loss price. It also leads them to waste a certain amount of milk daily which was 38.1 L/day in active farms and 51.43 L/day in temporarily closed farms. To compensate the ongoing loss many farmers had to sell their animals in a decrement price. Most of the farms experienced an increased cost of feed. The feed cost increased almost 29% and 3.24% during lockdown and after lockdown, respectively. The other costs also increased in the same way as there was lack of supply, lack of transport and labor. Farms also mentioned about the decreasing number of animals at farms as they had to sell animals to reduce the farm cost. During corona lockdown the daily farm activities and monitoring were hampered which made animals weak and prone to many diseases. Animals at certain number of farms developed mastitis, LSD, FMD, pneumonia during the pandemic due to poor management. For almost all the farms the COVID-19 was a curse that hampers the economic stability of most of the farmers and badly disrupt the dairy farm management.