With Eid-ul-Azha just two months away, businesses and individuals are investing in a broad range of activities to get handsome returns during the festival.

The most rewarding of all activities is the bulk booking of sacrificial animals. But alongside runs a lot of other trades like contracts being finalised for transportation of animals, dried and green fodders, iron melting for making knives, hatchets, wooden blocks, mats and meat-carrying traditional baskets used by butchers. Time and money is also being spent in large-scale production of conventional conveyor grill (kebab dani) and grill rods (seekh). Advance deals are being made even for supply of coal lumps that are used during Eid-ul-Azha Eid in barbecues.

Inquiries made at half a dozen leading chains of religious seminaries show that their managers have either struck deals for bulk purchase of sacrificial animals or are in the process of doing so. “We’re bringing cows and bulls from Bahawalpur and Sibbi and goats from Jacobabad and Rajanpur. Deals worth Rs50m have already been finalised,” administrator of a large North Nazimabad-based religious school told Dawn.

“Our selected livestock breeders have agreed to charge Rs45,000-55,000 per cow or bull and Rs15,000-Rs20,000 per goat. Thousands of animals have been chosen, tagged and left on grazing farms. We’ll start lifting them as the month of Eid-ul-Azha begins. We’ve made half the payment for the entire truckloads of animals and the remaining half would be paid when their lifting starts.”

From religious schools to traditional traders of sacrificial animals to branded and on-line versions of animal farm houses to temporarily-formed clubs of financiers there are various groups that act as a nexus of institutional investors and traders ahead of Eid-ul-Azha. Their loosely-knit network becomes active two or three months before Eid-ul-Azha and money starts changing hands in both rural and urban areas.

The most common thing is booking of sacrificial animals, which requires the seller to keep and feed the animals till the time the purchaser decides to transport them to major selling points in large cities. The cost of the upkeep of animals after finalisation of advance purchase deals are built in the prices. If the buyers do not have their own transportation, they are either charged extra amount at the time of the delivery or this cost too is included in the prices in the booking order.

Over past few years, investment in and trading of sacrificial animals has increased business relations between rural and urban areas. “It’s all about meeting immediate financial needs,” says Muhammad Asif of Applied Economic Research Centre. “Growers need cash at the time of sowing and early care of cotton crop. For some years, this need has become more pressing because they are more cash-starved after spending on Eid which has coincided with cotton sowing or early stages of cotton growing. So, small farmers in particular are willing to sell their animals cheaper to urban investors.”

Droughts in some parts of Sindh and Punjab also force many farmers to dispose off some of their goats and cattle ‘to be able to feed the remaining ones.’

Such animals are normally bought well before Eid-ul-Azha by big landlords in areas that are not hit by drought and where they have facilities for keeping and feeding animals till the eve of Eid-ul-Azha.

“This class of landlords many of whom are also owners of animal farm houses, make deals for advance sale of animals with investors of urban areas.”

Smuggling of live animals from India into Sindh and Punjab continues off and on. But during Eid-ul-Azha powerful people manage to bring in a large number of smuggled animals into the markets. “Last year, one of my friends had earned Rs2.8m by selling 70 cows and bulls smuggled from India, each of which earned him a net profit of Rs40,000,” recalls a Karachi-based seasonal animal trader. “The animals were smuggled into Punjab through Wagah border and kept at a religious seminary in suburbs of Islamabad.”

Distributors of dried and green fodders have also started taking purchase orders for truckloads of fodders to be transported from interior of Sindh to Karachi’s main sacrificial animals market. This too has provided an opportunity for many short-term investors.

Iron re-rolling mills in Karachi and Gujranwala are busy making butchers’ knives and hatchets for which traders of these items have placed orders. Wood and coal traders say they are selling coal lumps for Rs900-Rs1200 per 40kg to people for retail sales during Eid-ul-Azha. Those who pick up the coal bags on spot are charged lower rates whereas those who would lift them just before Eid-ul-Azha have to pay higher rates.

Informal booking of trading enclaves within main sacrificial animals market has also begun. Large enclaves were officially auctioned last year for Rs30,000 each for ten days of Eid-ul-Azha and small ones each for Rs15,000.

“This year, some people are booking these enclaves after paying an extra (illegal) amount of Rs10,000 and Rs5000 for large and small enclaves, respectively,” says one animal trader who himself has booked both kinds of enclaves.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, Aug 11th, 2014