The livestock sector is an integral part of the country's crucial and largely self-sufficient economy, of which smooth milk marketing is a sub-sector. The production character of the milk is fluid, widespread and both traditionally and commercially based in rural areas. Small-scale dairy farming – The small and medium-sized livestock households manage to purchase 2-5 cows with financial and technical support from the government, NGOs and cooperatives.
Medium Commercial Dairy Farming – The medium-sized households who mainly receive government incentives or cooperative support establish dairy farms where they usually raise 6 to 25 cows for market sale of milk and milk products; The prices of livestock and animal products in the country appear to fluctuate seasonally and regionally, mainly due to the variation in supply and demand of those products. Small farmers who raise only a small number of cows in rural areas produce most of the milk.
Intermediaries perform various intermediary marketing functions, such as the transportation and retailing of the milk, and connect the dairy farmers (producers) and the consumers. In this process, marketing middlemen buy the milk from the farmers at a cheap price and are said to appropriate large profits. Rahaman and Mian (1996), by also studying cooperative milk marketing channels in Sirajganj district and traditional milk marketing channels in three different markets (Dhaka, Mymensingh and Rangpur) in Bangladesh, found that the cooperative milk marketing channel can yield the best profits for primary producers.
Two types of transactions, direct and indirect, generally occurred between producers and consumers in milk marketing systems.
Chapter-03
- Selection of the study area and period of study
- Preparation of survey schedule
- Selection of sample
- Analytical Techniques
In fact, Asian consumers have generated nearly half of the global demand for dairy products over the past decade.
Chapter-04
Result and Discussion
Marketing channel
- Traditional Milk Marketing Channel
- Pala Milk Marketing Channel
- Cooperative Milk Marketing Channel
Retailer includes the milk dealer who buys milk from the Aratdar, Gowala or group or individual producers in the market and supplies this milk to the city consumers, hotels and restaurants. The middlemen play a role in marketing the rural milk to urban places, but the price of milk is not fixed and the middlemen do not pay farmers regularly. Gowala also cannot ensure the fresh milk for the consumers as they start fetching milk from the rural area early in the morning and sell it to the urban area till evening without any preservation measures.
Mixing water and milk powder in fresh milk is a very common practice among the Gowalas in this marketing channel. Small milk farmers in the area who produce 1-5 liters of milk, which cannot be profitably sold to individual farmers in the city with high transport costs, form an informal marketing group (Pala) with 20-50 members to collectively sell the milk. The Pal representative brings the group's milk to the market and sells it to the retailer through Aratdar.
The retailer ultimately sells this milk at a higher price to the urban consumers, restaurants and tea stalls and thus earns its own margins. The Pala system appears to be efficient in collectively marketing the milk by dairy farmers in the Char area. BMPCUL started its function with the aim of establishing a dairy base in Bangladesh and rural development by providing inputs to the farmers at low costs and ensuring fair price of milk to the small rural milk producers.
There are also Goala who collect milk from the farmers' houses through door-to-door visits and also from the local market. They prepare ghol and ghee with the collected milk and sell those products in the local market. Sometimes the small-scale producers take their milk to the market regularly if they cannot make regular arrangements to sell the milk from their own homes. Small dairy farms that produce more than 5 liters of milk per day also sell part of their milk on the local market.
They usually have regular contact with all the commercial dairy farms that produce larger quantities of milk for sale in the market, and also with the market intermediaries (Ghosh and cooling centres), who regularly purchase larger quantities of milk. After the paikers collect the milk from the producers and also from the local market, they supply it to the Ghosh (who use milk to prepare curd and ghees and sell it to the sweet shops), cooling centers of various milk processing factories and also to various social gatherings e.g. In the country there are already nine milk processing manufacturers/factories involved in collecting, processing and marketing fresh milk from dairy farms to the urban markets.
It must be remembered that facilities for sale to cooling centers are limited to only selected areas - the areas of concentrated milk production. They sell milk directly to the consumer (city dwellers).so they follow the direct market.
Marketing cost of milk
Transport costs involve the transport costs of milk from farms to the middleman and the consumer. The average transportation cost for 1 liter of milk production was Tk.1.80 which represented 32.14% of total marketing cost (Figure-5). Doctor visits the farm three times in every month and cost is Tk.0.57/Lit of milk production which represents 10.18% of total cost (Table.3).
Farmer usually uses some labor on a monthly salary daily wage basis to perform various functions on the farm. 20.54% of total costs (Table.3). The number of employers varies from 2 to 5 according to the size of the farm. In case of distant supply or sometimes lag stock or unsold milk it is necessary to store the milk.
The cost of a milk pail was estimated at 0.12 TK/litre of milk, which contributed 2.14% of the total marketing cost (Table 3). The average telephone bills were 0.33 TK/litre of milk, which contributed 5.89% of the total marketing costs (Table 3).
Marketing margin
Chapter-05
Problems and Recommendation
In the existing socio-economic condition of Bangladesh, there are so many marketing problems for liquid milk farmers. From the field survey in the study area it was known that dairy farm owners experience certain problems at the time of milk marketing which is presented in Table:- 06. It becomes very difficult for small scale farm owners to adjust their costs due to rising feed prices. They are forced to change feed ration quickly one after the other and therefore restrict milk production.
38 percent of farm owners felt that this was the main constraint for smooth production and marketing of milk (Table-06). Because when middlemen buy milk or when a farmer has to sell milk to a confectionery, they have to transport the milk to the destination. 1 of them felt that the high cost of transportation was the main constraint for their smooth marketing (Figure-6).
Hartal, strike, flood and natural calamities hamper the smooth transportation of milk to its destination, deteriorating the quality of milk and farmers have to face losses. In case of overproduction or lower demand, farmers have to store milk for a while.
Measures suggested by Farm Owners
Chapter-06
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
FAO CORPORATE DOCUMENT REPOSITORY, Title: Smallholder Dairy Development, Produced by: Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. An Economic Study of Poultry Farming by Smallholder Farmers under the Supervision of BRAC in Selected Areas of Kushtia District, Unpublished Master's Thesis, Department of Cooperation and Marketing, Bangladesh Agricultural University,. Khan, Mongrel and Suraya Begum (1996), The Dairy Households in Village Bangladesh: Its Prospects for Production and Marketing.
Production and marketing of livestock and livestock products in selected peri-urban areas of Bangladesh.
