PASIR MAS – Cattle breeder Zailani Hadzari from Kampung Betong in Seberang Pasir Mas said he will maintain the old prices for his cattle for the upcoming Hari Raya Aidiladha celebration.
The 55-year-old, who had ventured into cattle breeding for nearly 30 years, said he was aware that other breeders in the state planned to raise the price of cattle above RM5,000 from about RM4,200 due to higher prices for the livestock supply.
Zailani, however, chose not to raise the prices of his cattle, despite big losses he had incurred for almost two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I consider myself lucky because I get the supply of cattle from local villagers all this while. I bought young cattle (aged below 2 years old) from them with the price of less than RM3,000 per head.
“I bought them end of last year and early this year. After several months as they reached 2 years of age, it will be a good time to sell them for ‘korban’,” said the father of five.
For this year, Zailani said the price of his cattle would remain less than RM5,000 per head.
“During the pandemic period, I could only sell less than five cattle during Aidiladha. This year I managed to sell 19 cattle which almost triple compared to the last two years,” he added.
Zailani, who took over the business from his late father Hadzari Ghazali, said he had to feed the animals with grass to save cost.
“Instead of giving them animal feed, I have to feed them with grass everyday to reduce cost,” he said.
Malaysian Ruminant Transformation Generation Club (GTR) chairman Nordin Mat recently said the price increase was due to various factors including the increase in costs to raise cattle, including slaughter charges.
He said the price increase was inevitable because the pricing trend had been going up for the last 10 years, and the prices of livestock had risen by about 10 per cent each year.
However, he said, a higher increase of up to 20 per cent was recorded last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nordin said most of the cows could be imported from Thailand for Hari Raya Aidiladha this year and he expected demands for the livestock to be uncertain due to its high prices.
He also expressed his concern over the likelihood that more people would perform the ‘korban’ abroad, via packages offered by certain parties, which were cheaper.
Source: NEW STRAITS TIMES
