That is why milk producing countries want to cripple this industry, and the Modi government is willing to lend them a hand. They tried the RCEP route. Now they will try the methane greenhouse gases route to cull India’s cattle business.
Milk, thanks to the vision of Dr. Verghese Kurien, is the bedrock of India’s rural stability. It remains the fastest route to rural purchasing power, which in turn triggers economic growth elsewhere.
Leather
When the government tried banning even trading in cattle (till the courts stepped in), it was killing the leather trade. This trade is a big foreign exchange earner.
Already it is an employment-focused industry, providing jobs to about 4.42 Mn people. India is the world’s 2nd largest producer of footwear, 2nd largest exporter of Leather Garments, the 5th largest exporter of Leather Goods and 3rd Largest Exporter of Saddlery and Harness items.
This industry has survived mostly because the milk industry ensures a steady supply of hides which it can then cure, value-add, and then export. India can become the world’s largest exporter of this item as well, and thus create more jobs and more wealth for the country. Once again, western countries, in a bid to make India stumble, had tried to trip the dairy industry by exporting clarified butter into India, but were stopped by Dr. Kurien in the late 1980s.
They then spread a canard that India’s leather was carcinogenic. The irony was that these very countries used to buy the uppers from India, fit them overseas and call them leather goods made overseas. The leather industry has withstood all this. It could easily grow to double its size.
The Modi government was about to kill this industry as well.
Beef
Most non-vegetarian Indians consume chicken, goat meat, and beef (some consume pork and camel meat as well). However, a large percentage of beef is also exported. When it comes to buffalo meat – known as carabeef, India is the world’s largest exporter.
This is because the cost of meat production is among the lowest in the world. India does not have to grow cattle to meet meat demand. It is a by-product. Hence, unlike other countries, where cattle must be reared for meat production, India has them round the year. A second reason is that most Indian cattle are fed nutritious vegetarian cattle feed. In other countries, to accelerate cattle growth, they are fed a variety of things, which makes the meat less safe for human health. And the reason why India is the largest exporter of carabeef, is because few other countries rear buffaloes.
India has always been the largest or second largest meat exporter and its market share has been improving. But the cattle slaughter ban has hurt its growth. Like leather, it is labour intensive, though reliable employment numbers for this sector are not available.
But if the cattle slaughter ban is not eased, and if the vigilantes are not curbed, India risks losing this industry as well.
Hail to the triumvirate
Together, these three industries account for almost half the rural employment and much of nutrition. Milk alone accounts for per capita consumption of swelling to 320 ml/ day. The diary sector is the mother lode for all the three industries. Hurt it, and you could lose almost a third of consumer demand in India. For some categories like semen production, vaccines, the loss of business could be greater.
If India has to see economic revival, it must start with improving purchasing power in rural areas, because that is where 50% of the population resides. That triggers a growth in other sectors as well. Hurt this sector, and you slow down the country’s growth, both as an exporter and as a generator of wealth and nutrition.
There are other strategies that the government should pursue. But those will be taken up in subsequent articles.
The author is consulting editor with FPJ
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