Milk production has been enhanced by around 100,000 tons while dairy farm largely expanded in Rajshahi district in last four years, delighting many people as fortune maker.
In 2020, around 356,000 tons of milk was produced compared to 250,000 tons in 2016, said Ismail Haque, district livestock training officer.
Dairy farming has become a blessing for people because many of them are doing business for attaining economic emancipation in the region, he said.
Rabiul Karim has become an icon in the field of dairy farming in his locality at Katakhali Shyamnagar village, around nine kilometers off the Rajshahi city, for the last few years.
He started the business with four cows around six years back leaving behind his high-salaried job in a private company. He has 32 cows in his Abrar Dairy Farm on around four bigha of land at present.
A former student of the Department of Accounting and Information Management in Rajshahi University, Karim is getting 150 litres of milk from 13 of the cows on an average daily at present.
After exploring the existing potentialities, he has become competent towards making butter from the unsold milk and selling those to the food shops and other restaurants.
Currently, his monthly income has now stood at around Tk1 lakh, while around Tk15-18 lakh yearly through selling milk and other milk-based processed foods.
He has developed high-yielding grasslands on four bighas of land to feed the cows. He provides nutritious food to the cows regularly.
Karim said: "I, myself, prepare the feeds through mixing maize, wheat and rice bran and other nutritive grains and ingredients".
Another dairy farmer Golam Rahid has started his business after purchasing a cow at a cost of Tk10,000 around a decade back. Now, he has 25 cows producing 120 litres of milk on an average every day.
Amidst arrangement of high yielding and high breeding cows, milk production has been enhanced to a great extent. He sells the milk at his farm in Assam Colony area in the city.
Rahid said dairy farming has now become expensive in the wake of price-hike of cow's feed items, medicines and other requisite inputs.
Like Rabiul Karim and Golam Rahid, many others have become successful entrepreneurs in this field contributing a lot towards ensuring milk and other milk-based processed foods to the society.
Artificial insemination of cows is gaining popularity in the region following significant achievement in the breed up-gradation method, said Ismail Haque, District Livestock Training Officer.
He said the cows are giving milk ten times more than that of the previous record due to the cross-breeding.
In both rural and urban areas, the poor and marginalized people including women have achieved tremendous successes in the sector through getting various assistances from the government.
Prof Jalal Uddin Sarder of the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences in Rajshahi University opined that boosting milk production and its consumption is very effective to eradicate the malnutrition that can stem Covid-19 spread.
Highlighting the enormous aspects of milk to the nation-building process, he viewed that milk consumption is also crucial for both physical and mental development of the children.
Prof Sarder mentioned that large-scale promotion of the livestock sector is very important to remove the existing protein deficiency alongside ensuring food security.
In addition to meeting the nutritional deficit especially meat and milk demand, the livestock sector has a laudable contribution to enrich the soil nutrient which is being declined gradually due to indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and harmful pesticides.
He said most of the people suffer from malnutrition, especially lack of animal protein getting from milk, meat and egg.
He revealed that production of huge amounts of meat through the indigenous beef-cattle improvement would supply low cost meat for people and it will ultimately protect them from malnutrition.
