Effects of Climate Change and Natural Disasters on Cattle Farming in Selected Areas of Bangladesh: A Preliminary Investigation

Climate change and natural disasters have unequivocal impacts on global agricultural production systems thereby its threats hampering food production and security. The current study was undertaken to identify the natural disasters affecting cattle farming along with the strength of the ability of the farmers to tackle cattle against natural disaster and knowledge and feelings on the impact of climate change in the Bangladesh perspective. A total of 719 cattle rearing households were surveyed from selected 14 upazilas of 9 districts. Data were analyzed with SPSS 20.0 software using descriptive statistics. From the study, it was found that most of the households (95.13%) were farm households depending on agricultural activities. The average herd sizes of indigenous, Red Chittagong Cattle (RCC) and crossbred cattle were 3.84, 2.67, and 7.64 respectively. The average number of bull calf/bull in the case of indigenous (2.22) and RCC (2.43) were higher indicating that farmers were mainly reared these genotypes of cattle for fattening purpose and in the case of crossbred the average number of the milch cow was higher (3.04) indicating farmers rearing crossbred cattle mainly for dairy purpose. However, irrespective of areas 52.97% of cattle rearing farmers thought that natural disaster affected their cattle rearing and the highest 62.08% of farmers thought that the cattle rearing affected by flood followed by cyclone (57.83%), heavy rainfall (54.00%), thunderstorm (44.79%), drought (24.07%) and river erosion (9.66%). Moreover, overall 43.71% of cattle farmers and the highest 88.89% cattle farmers in Sylhet district reported that they were unable to tackle cattle against natural disasters. Furthermore, overall 12.95% of cattle farmers found they were ignorant about the climate change issues. The farmers in Bandarban (100.00%), Tangail (66.67%), Jessore (94.87%), and Rajshahi (76.19%) districts were had knowledge and feeling, on the other hand in Kurigram (97.83%) and Mymensingh (45.45%) districts farmers had no knowledge and feeling over climate change issues. Cattle farmers assumed that cattle health (64.22%) and production performance (49.09%) were mostly affected by climate change issues. Climate change effect and increasing weather extremes, directly and indirectly affects cattle rearing, thus impose bigger consequences to the livestock economy, alongside national food security. There has been no direct study conducted on the effects of climate change on cattle rearing in Bangladesh. This study affords to explore the effects of climate change and natural disasters on cattle rearing and provides preliminary guidelines to policymakers and for further research in the Bangladesh perspective.