Derailing White Revolution

What is the issue?

The gau raksha activism is actually derailing the benefits of India’s white revolution.

How much of India’s milk today comes from cows?

• Out of a total production of 132.64 million tonnes (mt) in 2013-14, excluding milk from goats, 70.44 mt — or 53% — was accounted for by buffaloes.
• The balance 62.19 mt — or 47% — was from cows.
• Even within the 62.19 mt, the share of crossbreds — cows containing genetic material of ‘western’ breeds like Holstein Friesian, Jersey and Brown Swiss — was 33.89 mt.
• Indigenous cattle contributed 28.31 mt, or just over a fifth of India’s bovine milk output.

Can indiscriminate slaughter lead to the reduction in cattle population?

• It is the other way round.
• Slaughter bans make it difficult for farmers to dispose of unproductive animals that are giving less milk, or happen to be male.
• Since these curbs apply only on cattle and not buffaloes — whose meat can be sold and exported freely — farmers prefer rearing the latter.
• The fact that buffalo milk fetches better prices due to its higher fat (about 7%) and solids-not-fat (9%) content — as against 3.5% and 8.5%, respectively for cow milk — further reinforces this preference.

But how important really is ease of disposal of non-milking animals for the dairy farmer?

• A typical crossbred cow will deliver its first calf and start producing milk at 27-28 months. Farmers usually don’t keep a cow beyond 5-6 calvings, when milk yields plummet and the returns do not justify the costs of feeding and maintenance.
• By this time, the animal would be 7-8 years old and still has another 5-6 years to live.
• The farmer will obviously want to, then, sell.
• And the only interested buyer here would be the butcher or the trader supplying to slaughterhouses.

Why can’t he take the animal to a gaushala or pinjrapole (cattle shelters)?

• A dairy farmer who has, say, 20 cows would seek to replace 5-6 old animals with new stock every year.
• Regular herd turnover — disposal of cows past their productive age and induction of fresh milch cattle — is what ensures a certain minimum level of milk sales round the year.
• Now, assuming a desired annual herd turnover or replacement rate of 25%, this requirement clearly cannot be met by cow shelters.
• Even taking 6 lakh animals in all the shelters of Gujarat, they are a fraction of the state’s 99.84 lakh cattle population, as per the 2012 Livestock Census.
• While more such homes could plausibly be built, the question arises: Wouldn’t government money be better spent on schools and hospitals than gaushalas?

So, is culling or selective slaughter the only solution?

• It is, perhaps, the only sustainable solution. Farmers today keep cows only for milk.
• By guaranteeing a market for unproductive cattle, the butcher is actually providing a valuable service to the dairy farmer.

To what extent will laws like the latest one in Gujarat — providing life sentence for cow slaughter and 10-year term for transportation, storage or sale of beef — spoil this seemingly symbiotic relationship?

• Tough anti-slaughter laws — and, equally important, governments and gau rakshaks determined to implement them — will most certainly throw cattle traders, transporters and butchers out of business.
• But it would also render cattle rearing increasingly unviable in some states that produce over 56% of the country’s milk.
• In the long run, milk output can increase only through commercial dairying, wherein farmers keep at least 20 animals that are mostly crossbred cows.

• This has been the trend even in Gujarat, where average herd sizes are going up and dairying is no longer a subsidiary occupation to regular crop agriculture.
• Gau rakshak activism of the kind seen now has the potential to undermine the gains from the White Revolution and the move to commercial dairying.

Source: Indian Express