Cattle Fattening and Its roles in Socio-Economic Development of Fatteners: A Learning from Northern Part of Bangladesh

Abstract

Income-generating activities (IGAs) are the activities that are adopted to maintain the livelihood of people, particularly those who are marginalized and grassroots. IGAs also help to meet the daily needs of the doers by ensuring earnings through producing products. However, to explore the role of cattle fattening in improving the socio-economic status of the fatteners or farmers as IGA was the paper’s main objective. Mainly, the respondent’s survey with an interview schedule was used as the data collection method. Shibganj village was chosen purposively as the study area due to the prevalence of cattle fatteners reported. The study found that women were the major portion of the fatteners who were rearing and fattening cattle in separate rooms in their own house rooms in their own houses. Initially, they invested on average fifty thousand takas for purchasing cattle, and after rearing for a duration (average of six months), they sold the cattle to the local market. They were financially benefited by selling cattle, which also played a vital role in changing their social status. Almost all the fatteners opined that cattle fattening improved their social and economic conditions than before. Moreover, some problems were reported such as lack of emergency support for cattle, financial weakness of the fatteners, instability of price, and high-rate interest of loan.