LAHORE: With Eidul Azha just around the corner, inflation and the financial crunch have started to give a tough time not to only customers, but also to animal traders. It is believed that the city might face a severe shortage of sacrificial animals, especially goats and sheep, this Eid.

People have started visiting the cattle markets to buy animals for Eidul Azha, but are unwilling to pay the sky-high prices, which have almost doubled compared to the previous year.

Situation: Sellers bringing animals to Lahore from distant areas to get a good price are depressed because of the increased cost of fodder, tents and nutritional feed, ever-high transportation cost and absence of potential buyers. All this has compelled the traders to either sell their animals to markets in other cities or settle for lower profit in Lahore. Rahimullah, an animal trader from Bahawalnagar who has been bringing sacrificial animals to Lahore for the last many years, said he had brought 50 goats this year, whose prices ranged between Rs 18,000 and Rs 42,000.

He said the market in Lahore had always offered him a handsome profit, but now the situation had completely changed.

“Looking at the market, I seriously doubt that I can even recoup my investment,” he said. “A goat weighing 50kg cost me Rs 22,000 to 25,000 last year, but this year I had to buy it for Rs 32,000,” Rahimullah said, adding that he had paid Rs 12,000 to get his animals transported to Lahore last year, but this season the transportation cost was Rs 20,000, due to which he would have to raise price of each animal.

Moreover, he said the price of green fodder, Barsim, had gone to Rs 400 per 40kg, compared to Rs 250 last year, while the price of dry fodder named, Javi, had gone to Rs 20 per kg from Rs 10. He said similarly the prices of nutritional feed, including grains and wheat, had also doubled. He said the rise in prices of fodder had taken the average cost of feed for his goats to Rs 7,500 per day this season.

“I ask for Rs 40,000 or 42,000 for a 50kg goat, but customers are not willing to spend so much. I can’t afford to sell it for Rs 20,000 to Rs 22,000, which is what most customers offer,” he said. The trader said people this year were more interested in buying goats weighing up to 25ks, due to which his sales were not more than two goats a week. He said he was hopeful he would get more customers in the last few days before Eid. Some other traders also expressed the same concerns and said they would sell the animals in cities like Gujranwala, Faisalabad and even Karachi, in case the market situation in Lahore did not improve. They said it would be better to sell the animals in bulk instead of piecemeal sales in Lahore. Those who have already bought animals in bulk and transported them to Lahore are now worried about their sales. Many of them said they would take their animals back home instead of facing a huge financial loss.

Meanwhile, some potential customers said it was difficult for them to buy sacrificial animals at such high prices. “For people like me who can’t afford a goat this season, contributing money for a share in the sacrifice of a cow or bull would be the only option,” said Jahangir, a customer. (News sourced from: Daily Times)