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Researcher: Dr. Pijush Kanti Boral
The greatest difficulty in livestock- rearing in Bangladesh
is the serious shortage of cattle feed. Expansion of
agriculture, indiscriminately extending into pasturelands,
has given rise to this shortage. The crisis of cattle
feed is further aggravated by the fact that with the
introduction of irrigation throughout the country, the
agricultural land remains under cultivation throughout
the year. Cattle rearing in a small scale are thus no
more profitable. The cost of cattle feed is also on
the rise. This has caused a decline in the country's
total cattle stock. The poverty groups are unable to
cope with this increase in cost and are thus not encouraged
to go for cattle rearing. Scientist and researchers
in this field have been experimenting on low-cost cattle
feed for sometime. The Bangladesh Livestock Research
Institute, through its research efforts has developed
Algae as cattle feed. The main objective of this research
project is to develop a low cost technology for producing
this Algae by small and marginal farmers at their own
homestead to supplement the available cattle feed. If
the experiment in producing low cost Algae proves successful,
it can be replicated all over the country to encourage
the poverty groups to try generating additional income
from cattle rearing. The experiment is being conducted
through involving 30 poor families in Gopalgonj, a district
in the southwestern region of Bangladesh.
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