©Sanzidur Rahman
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Livestock (cattle, buffalo, goat, and poultry bird)is an important resource in Bangladesh for two reasons. First as a source of animal protein, and second as a source of draft power for crop agriculture. Though exact count of existing livestock population is not available, the four comprehensive Agriculture and Livestock Censuses revealed that their number are increasing steadily. For instance, the total number of bovine animals (cattle and buffalo), were 14.9 million in 1945, 19.4 million in 1960, 20.9 million in 1977, and 22.1 million in 1983/84. A recent Census is carried out during the 1995/96 period whose results are expected later. However, one may comprehend that the current figures will not be that optimistic. The contribution of livestock sector to annual GDP varied from 5.1% in 1972/73 to 3.4% in 1993/94. The annual compound growth rate is 3.8% for the 1972/73 to 1993/94 period. Though the total number of bovine animals seems very large, only 53.5% of farm households own any of them and the per capita bovine animal is only 0.26 numbers in 1983/84 down from 0.38 in 1960.
© 1997 hsp59593@ait.ac.th