Source: hindustantimes.com
Gone are the days when cattle lovers had to wait for annual animal fairs to sell and buy cows and buffaloes. Now, the Internet is enabling farmers to search and select the cattle of their choice based on their profiles on the online classifieds.
The new platform also helps them save time and money that they earlier spent in search of cattle. They can now contact the seller directly by getting the required information on the online outlets. These outlets provide a long list of animals and dairy farms where farmers can find the desired cows or buffaloes. A review of these online outlets shows most of the entries are from Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
New trend in Punjab, Haryana
Though the online sale and purchase of cattle is a new phenomenon in Haryana and Punjab, it was already popular in several other parts of the country as many a website display classifieds for cattle.
The olx.com has even created a separate category for animals, enabling the people to upload the pictures, pedigree, milk production and other features of their cattle to attract buyers.
“This is a very attractive and effective way to sell and buy cattle. Though we still have to visit the advertiser for physical examination of the cattle, but it helps us to get contact and location of the seller and the buyer”, said Paramjeet Singh of Chaudhary Dairy Farm at Banipur in Rewari district.
The 42-year-old dairy farmer, who has uploaded advertisements of his cows for buyers, said, “I don’t know much about the Internet but I take the help of my 18-year-old son to upload ads to sell the cattle or to get contacts of the other sellers.”
‘No need to give commision to agents’
Similarly, Kulbir Saharan of Jind district who deals in Murrah buffaloes, said, “This (online classifieds) is the best way to find the best buyer. I am in dairy business for the past 10 years. Earlier, we used to search sellers by visiting various villages and we had to pay commission to the agents who used to take us to the sellers, but now the websites help us to get sellers and buyers.
He added, “Even people from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh contact me for murrah buffaloes after watching the advertisements online and they pay good price to us.”
Fake customers a concern
Even as most of the advertisers seem upbeat about the new trend, some of them are complaining about fake customers also.
Amit Kumar from Kaithal district, who got a buyer for his black murrah buffalo with the help of online marketplace, says, “This is a good platform and we get good response, but the number of serious buyers is less. For instance, I got around 40 calls in response to my ad titled ‘Black Beauty – Murrah Buffalo’ but only 10 of the callers were genuinely interested. Nevertheless, I got a buyer from Punjab within three days of uploading the ad”.
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