Managing the herd online: Wait a whole year to earn returns on investments

Cattle farmers talk about potential and risks in the business.

KARACHI:

Eidul Azha – one of the most celebrated religious festivals for Muslims – brings a good opportunity for many to start business and make handsome earnings. Apart from part-timers and seasonal businessmen who try to capitalise on the opportunity, there are some who toil and wait a whole year to earn returns on their investments.

One of those is Touheed Ali Toor of Chaudhary Farms, a Lahore-based cattle farmer, who anxiously waits for Eidul Azha every year.

For him, Eid is a two-week season that comes once a year for which he has to work hard for almost a year. Toor believes that this business is capital-intensive as well as risky because sometimes the investor ends up reaping very little or no profit.

He started his business two years ago. This year he raised 65 bulls, some for four months and some for 10 months, and has already sold 50 of them.

He cautions that the business is not for everyone for a couple of reasons. It needs expertise and significant investment, say at least Rs2 million, to get respectable returns.

“I work with my brother and cousins who were already in the cattle farm business,” says Toor. “I took the risk of investing may be because of some prior knowledge of the business.”

However, it does not mean newcomers cannot venture into the arena, he says, adding they just need to wait for a few months to gain some experience.

He suggests that prospective investors can also tap the meat export market, which offers better returns. A number of Pakistani companies are now exporting meat and need reliable cattle farmers, who can supply healthy animals that meet international standards.

Besides raising animals for Eid, Toor is considering exporting meat in coming years. Markets like Dubai prove lucrative for meat exporters, he says.

Chaudhary Farms, in partnership with professional butchers, is booking orders for Eid through internet. Many professional or seasonal butchers and cattle farmers are using classified websites for advertisements, most of which are free, and Chaudhary Farms is one of them.

A small entrepreneur from Lahore, Muhammad Ali, an established computer engineer in mid-30s, published advertisements with his mobile number and address of his new website on different classified websites. He is booking orders for goats, share in cows and bulls and slaughter of animals for the first time this Eid.

He has registered a domain – onlinebakra.com - and got hundreds of calls for booking orders. With a very simple website in Urdu, he says he has got exceptional response until now. He hopes to make profits from next year after establishing his name in the city.

“This is my part-time business and I will continue with my job,” says Ali. “I want to grow the business and in partnership with my friends, I want to start cattle farming from this year.”

“I am a computer professional, so obviously using internet for advertising is close to my heart,” says Ali, adding more and more people are using internet to purchase sacrificial animals and book butchers.

Qurbanionline is Pakistan’s oldest and busiest website for purchase of sacrificial animals and slaughtering orders.

Qurbanionline Co-founder Hasnain Raza tells The Express Tribune that this year they have already got over 3,000 orders, of which around 1,300 are from overseas.

Launched around six years ago, the website has expanded considerately since then. It got 350 orders in 2009 and around 1,000 orders in 2010.

“Buying and selling of animals on the internet is growing, but there are only a few who have survived in this market,” says Raza. “The market will grow continuously, but only those, who work with sincerity, will stay because it is all about trust.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2012.