Fodder for thought

The orders being issued by different state governments restricting production, sale and consumption of cattle meat — particularly beef — has generated much heat in the past few weeks. The discourse on the so-called beef ban has mostly centred around religious, political, social, legal and, to some degree, economic aspects of the move. Personal choice and liberty have also been talked about. While all these are important issues, they don’t represent the whole picture. The ecological, scientific and livelihood concerns of the beef ban are equally important. We need to examine these issues critically, given our large livestock population — a bulk of them being cows, bulls, buffaloes and bullock — and the role it plays in sustenance agriculture. These animals meet much of our milk, meat and draught power requirements and also contribute huge amounts of foreign exchange. The contribution of buffaloes alone to the GDP is almost equal to that made by rice and wheat put together. Animals are an important part of our pastoral and rural economies and are a central player in our ecological systems as well as nutrition and food security. It would be fallacious to look at cattle solely as source of meat or objects of worship. 

The total livestock population of India stands at over 512 million, according to the last census conducted in 2012. Of this, bovine population — mostly cattle and buffalo — is close to 300 million and a third of them fall in the category of milch animals. The number of milk-giving cows and female buffaloes, according to the census data, is growing while sheep, goat and pig populations are seeing a decline. Adequate feed and fodder are essential for animals to be productive and to give economic benefits in the form of milk and meat.

While the bovine animal population is growing, feed and fodder situation is worsening with land available for fodder production and grazing decreasing. Grazing rights of local communities are being violated or ignored wherever large ‘development’ projects are coming up. At present, India faces a net deficit of 61.1% green fodder, 21.9% of dry crop residues and 64% feeds. Forests, permanent pastures, grazing lands, grasslands and fallow areas — where livestock go for grazing — are all shrinking. Besides grazing animals, the poor depend on community forests for their fuel requirements too. For higher milk and meat production, animals have to be given additional nutrition in the form of coarse cereals like maize, sorghum and pearl millet. The production of these millets has been stagnating for many years now. Crop residues — another source of food for animals — are increasingly being diverted for packaging and other industrial uses. All this pressure on feed and fodder gets exaggerated during drought and floods. Either we increase productivity of feed crops and make more grazing lands available or we resort to import of feed and fodder. 

Livestock rearing is an economic activity for farmers having small land holdings in rainfed areas. The combination of livestock and farming sustains them and helps hedge risks of bad weather or crop failure. According to the Indian Council of Agriculture Research, crop-livestock system is one way of optimising output from limited land and other resources of production. In such a system, dairy production contributes 20% to 50% of family income. This share goes up for marginalised, landless rural people. In a way, livestock rearing acts as drought-proofing strategy for farmers in arid and semiarid region, besides providing inputs for crop production, fuel cakes and animal power. Even after animals stop mulching, grow old and become infertile, they yield significant economic benefits to farmers by way of meat and hide. On the other hand, sustaining an unproductive animal becomes an economic burden. If such unproductive animals are not used for meat production, they end up as ‘stray animals’ – the number if such cattle, according to the 2012 census, is over five million.  

The cattle issue is also linked to climate change. Ruminating animals like cows emit methane — which is a greenhouse gas whose emissions needs to be curbed in order to prevent catastrophic effects of climate change.

This has often led to a blame game between rich and poor countries in climate negotiations and some Western studies are suggesting that the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to stop eating animal meat. It may be true for the advanced West where there is intensive animal farming solely for the purpose of beef production. But this is not the case for countries like India, where animals are an integral part of agriculture and they are not reared only for meat products. Meat production is a part of the chain and normally comes at the end of the economic cycle of livestock. As far as methane emissions from cattle are concerned, they can be reduced through improved feeding systems.

By imposing a ban on beef production and all related activities, state governments concerned are looking at cattle from the narrow prism of cruelty and religious sentiments. If more and more states join the bandwagon of the ban — as appears likely — it can have rippling impacts on sustenance agriculture, rural economies and fodder production. Any such decision needs to be taken only after careful evaluation of its ramifications based on enormous data and knowledge available with scientific institutions. The central government runs a string of research institutes dedicated to each aspect of Indian livestock — cattle breeding, buffaloes research, fodder, dairying,  meat production, food processing, rainfed agriculture and so on. Hundreds of crores of rupees are spent on research into these issues. What’s the use of such research if scientific evidence is not taken into consideration when policy decisions are taken? If states are going to ban beef production and marketing, why keep funding bodies like the National Research Centre on Meat or the Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes? Has any impact assessment study been done by animal husbandry departments of states which have banned beef production or are planning to do so? Has any consultation been held with scientists, farmers, rural communities on the subject by state governments concerned? Today, it’s beef. Will it be fish tomorrow because, after all, fish is also one of the ten avatars of a popular god? 

The writer is a columnist and author based in New Delhi