Cow shit selling like hot cakes online

Rural communities in the south Asian nation are rushing to online retailers to sell the product, made by mixing fresh cow faeces with hay and then dried in the sun.

Some retailers are getting orders so large that they are offering free global delivery, and some customers, from urban areas inside India and abroad, are asking for gift wrapping.

Just a quick search for 'cow dung cake' on eBay or Amazon brings up dozens of results to buy packs of patties from India and Pakistan.

One seller based in the Indian city of Agra, home of the iconic Taj Mahal, boasted of how it has an 'astonishing variety of uses'.

He claimed they can be used as natural fertiliser, an 'air purifier' when mixed with camphor and even in cooking, adding: 'In burning these cow dung cakes, the temperature never rises beyond a certain point ensuring the nutrients in the food are not destroyed by overheating.'

In India, where Hindus have long worshipped cows as sacred, cow dung cakes have been used for centuries for fires, whether for heating, cooking or Hindu rituals.

Radhika Agarwal of ShopClues, a major online retailer in India, said demand for the cow dung cakes spiked during the recent Diwali festival season, a time when Hindus conduct prayer ceremonies at their homes, factories and offices. On a recent day, ShopClues' website showed that the patties had sold out.

The cakes are sold in packages that contain two to eight pieces weighing 200 grams (7 ounces) each. Prices range from 100 to 400 rupees (500 Naira to 1,000 Naira) per package.

Cow shit cakes are also used as organic manure, and some sellers are marketing them for use in kitchen gardens.

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