THE recent killings of Mohammad Akhlaq, Noman and Zahid Ahmad Bhatt on the claim that they were slaughtering cows is not only an attack on the right to life, livelihood and diverse food cultures but an assault on the entire agrarian economy. The cynical fetishization of cows by Hindutva politicians is not only profoundly anti-farmer but, paradoxically, also anti-cow. What these ‘bigots’ fail to realize is that the cow will survive only if there are proactive measures to support multiple-produce based cattle production systems where animals have economic roles. The system must produce a combination of milk, beef, draught work, manure and hide, as has been the case in the rain-fed food farming agriculture systems of the subcontinent over the centuries.

In meat production systems – whether meat from cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goat, and pigs or poultry – it is the female which is reared carefully in large numbers to reproduce future generations, and the male that goes to slaughter. It is only the sick, old, infertile and non-lactating female that is sold for slaughter. In every society where beef consumption is not politicized, farmers known that eating the female bovine as a primary source of meat will compromise future production, and hence they are rarely consumed.

On the other hand, the destiny of a male bovine is clear: it will either become a work animal (bullock), a breeding bull, or be sold for meat – which is the fate of the vast majority. In the end, the male bovine will reach a slaughter house. Villages earlier had a system of having one community breeding bull which roamed around servicing village cows that came to heat. Typically, 70% of a cattle herd or sheep/goat flock is female breeding stock; the rest comprises a couple of breeding males, and young male and female offspring.

Today, rural indigenous cows are a rarity in India and community breeding bulls have been relegated to history. Farmers no longer want to rear cattle, particularly cows. This trend is validated by an analysis of India’s livestock census: Between 2003 and 2012, the annual growth of young female bovines – a key indicator of future growth trends of animal populations – on a compound annual growth rate basis declined from 1.51% to 0.94% in indigenous cattle and from 8.08% to 5.05% in crossbred cattle. On the other hand it increased from 2.12% to 3.13% in young female buffaloes.¹

Whilst India’s population of fine indigenous cattle breeds keeps decreasing year by year, Brazil’s cattle populations of Ongole, Kankrej and Gir breeds – imported from the Indian subcontinent nearly 200 years ago – keep increasing. We have laws to ‘protect’ cows, ban cow slaughter and ban the consumption of beef: the whole of the Northeast, Kerala and West Bengal have no restrictions on cattle slaughter, nine states allow all cattle slaughter except cows, and the rest have a ban on all cattle slaughter. In Brazil, on the other hand, beef-based cattle production systems are the driving force behind its flourishing indigenous Indian cattle breed populations. Between 1997 and 2012, according to the government’s successive livestock censuses, India’s indigenous cattle population declined by over 15% from 178 million to 151 million, less than what we began with at the time of independence (155 million), when all cattle were indigenous breeds.

 

Fifty years of sustained white revolution policy interventions to enhance milk production have actively advocated and financed replacement of indigenous cattle with high yielding breeds. Cross-breeds like Jersey and Holstein Friesan now comprise some 21% of India’s cattle population. But even India’s total cattle population, including cross-breeds, has increased by a mere 23% (from 1951 to 2012) and stands at 190 million.² In stark contrast, Brazil’s cattle population – comprising 80% pure Indian cattle breeds (Indicine) or Indian cattle breed crossed cattle – grew by 74% from 56 million in 1965 to 214 million today. The Gir, which is the favoured dairy breed, comprises 10% of Brazil’s cattle population. The Ongole (or Nellore), which is the mainstay of beef production, makes up most of Brazil’s cattle population.³ The Ongole of India, however, is a threatened breed in its own homeland.

While Brazil continues to have acres of land for their cattle to graze, here in India we have successfully done away with common grazing lands where animals can be put to pasture. In the land of the Ongole, pre-2014 united Andhra Pradesh, permanent pastures and grazing lands declined by 78% from 1.17 million hectares in 1955-56 to 0.56 million hectares in 2009-10. The rate of decline was much faster in the post economic liberalization decades of 1990-2010 – a time of aggressive industrial growth and Hindutva influence.⁴

 

In today’s India, cattle have been displaced from their productive role in agricultural livelihoods: tractors have replaced bullocks/draught animals that were used to plough, thresh, and anchor rural transportation. India’s population of work cattle or bullocks declined by 28% between 1997 and 2012.⁵ This has been the result of economic policies that have strived to industrialize, and ‘green’ and ‘white’ revolutionize our agriculture and livestock production.

Chemical fertilizers have replaced manure. A shift from diverse food cropping systems of cultivation to mono-cropped production of commodity crops like cotton, sugarcane, and tobacco, or palm oil has depleted crop residues as a rich fodder source, and made bullock ploughing virtually redundant. The bullock is no longer needed to extract oil from oil seeds (in any case we now import 60% of our edible oil and even poor oil millers have closed shop), extract juice from sugarcane, pull water out of wells or be the main mode of rural transportation. Hence, why should farmers keep indigenous bullocks? Or rear indigenous cows for that matter, which produce bullocks? Once animals stop having an economic value, they stop being reared. Simple.

 

Contrast the sorry state of India’s cattle with its thriving buffalo population. Our buffalo population has grown by 21% since 1997. Why? Very simple: buffaloes anchor milk and beef production in India. We are the largest exporters of buffalo beef and the 2nd largest exporters of beef in the world, with an annual export of nearly 2.4 million tons.⁶ Bovine meat contributes nearly 60% of total Indian meat production, as against small ruminants (15%), pigs (10%) and poultry (12%).

Buffaloes survive well on limited, coarse, less nutritious crop residues, whilst cattle need more green fodder and green grass. This is evidence itself that given all other conducive input factors for the animal to be reared (primarily feed, fodder, water, ecological adaptability, knowledge, labour, health care and a remunerative livelihood), allowing the slaughter of an animal actually drives its numbers up. The same holds true for goat and sheep. Between 1997 and 2012, the sheep population increased overall by 13%, and goats by 10%, despite a 33-38% slaughter rate.⁷ In short, the secret to flourishing animal populations appears to be meat consumption.

The highly industrialized beef producing nations of the world – the United States, EU, Australia and New Zealand – produce beef by intensively feeding cattle with soya and maize that is predominantly cultivated in Brazil and Argentina. These vast acres of animal feed are replacing acres of land where food could be grown to feed human beings. Regrettably, in Latin America, large beef corporations are steadily converting huge tracts of natural prime Amazonian forests, home to indigenous peoples, into grazing lands: in short these systems are unsustainable, contributing hugely to carbon emissions.

India’s beef production on the other hand, is one of the most sustainable and least ecologically damaging in the world. Beef is a by-product of buffalo rearing livelihood practices, and not its primary objective, which continue to be milk and milk products. Whilst male buffaloes end up in the slaughterhouses, farmers also sell their infertile, old, diseased and non-lactating females. Our animals are not fed on predominantly grain-based concentrate diets, but on crop residues, and natural vegetation.

 

The ban beef brigade assumes that farmers are able to rear their cattle in perpetuity, regardless of whether their cattle are healthy and productive, or if farmers are able to feed and water them adequately, or if the markets are supportive of their cattle-based livelihoods. Farmers’ actions squarely reflect larger economic and environmental circumstances: during summer months, particularly during times of severe drought, when there is scarce fodder and water, farmers sell their large livestock – cattle and buffaloes.

Similarly, when they are gripped in debt, farmers resort to distress sales of cattle and buffaloes to help them tide over these acute crises periods; cattle and buffalo sales often being the final act that saves them from taking their own lives. Increasingly highly volatile dairy markets are also forcing farmers to sell their cows, and lose their livelihoods. The year 2015 was a classic illustration of how debt, drought and a slump in milk procurement prices drove cattle sales.

 

In early 2015, there were reports from Adilabad, Telangana, of heavily indebted cotton and soybean farmers resorting to distress sales of cattle. The farmers were not bothered who bought their animals, as long as they received a reasonable price. Traders in cattle, reported that they paid farmers anywhere from Rs 40000-50000 for a healthy pair of bullocks which yielded roughly 500 kgs of beef. Farmers also reported that no other buyers were able to pay them as much as did the traders.⁸

In May 2015, there were reports from Yavatmal in Maharashtra, which borders Adilabad, of villages being emptied of their cattle for want of fodder and water. This is a region that has witnessed a frightening and growing number of farmer suicides. Nearly half of a village called Dahegaon, had sold off its bullocks, reported the village sarpanch.⁹ Drought, followed by unseasonal rains had destroyed crops, and aggravated an already acute agrarian crisis. Ironically. Maharashtra’s decision to extend the ban on cow slaughter to bullocks in May 2015 exacerbated the crises for farmers, as the ban resulted in plummeting livestock prices.

 

Farmers who in March 2015 were able to sell cattle they had bought for Rs 60000, at Rs 40000, were unable to find any buyers in May, due to the beef ban. Buyers are unwilling to purchase cattle for which there is no resale value. Bullocks are a form of ‘bank on hooves’ for several farmers, who can be assured of a good resale value. Farmers stated that they stand to earn virtually nothing through the sales of their cattle due to the ban on beef. Farmers dismissed categorically the cattle shelter/gaushaala idea of the government, asking a very straight-forward question: ‘Why should we gift away our animals to a shelter when we have spent huge amounts of money to purchase them? Are we not entitled to recover some parts of our initial investment?’¹⁰

By late November 2015, there were reports from Karnataka¹¹ and Telangana,¹² about large-scale distress sales of bullocks (and cows) by farmers who were no longer able to feed their animals, due to the severe drought and exorbitant prices of fodder. According to reports obtained by the agriculture and animal husbandry department, Telangana, distress sale of cattle was witnessed in Medak, Nalgonda, Ranga Reddy, Karimnagar and Nizamabad districts, arising from a combined situation of severe shortage of fodder, its high price and farmers trying to clear their debts by selling cattle. Medak district reported the sales of six lakh livestock, two lakh sales in Nizamabad, 1.5 lakh in Mahbubnagar and one lakh cattle in Karimnagar district. Department officials project a grim unfolding scenario, predicting a rapidly worsening situation by summer of 2016.

Media reports from Karnataka quote farmers who say they are willing to sell their animals to any buyer because of huge expenses incurred in buying fodder to feed the animals. This translates into a large proportion of their already meagre earnings, going towards feeding the animals.¹³

 

Ironically in a year of acute drought and crop loss, where dairying becomes such an important fallback livelihood for farmers, 2015 was a year where dairy processors, both cooperatives and corporations, drastically reduced the prices at which they purchased milk, paying farmers far below their cost of production.¹⁴ They also rejected milk from farmers, forcing farmers to literally pour milk down the drain.¹⁵ Farmers essentially have been at the receiving end of India’s dairy growth policy decisions, including exporting dairy products like skimmed milk powder (SMP). A global slump in skimmed milk powder prices, which began in July 2014, in turn triggered a massive decline in Indian SMP exports and a build-up of undisposed domestic SMP stocks. Dairy processors have been disposing these stocks as recombined liquid milk, rather than procuring milk from farmers at fair prices. They have cited ‘excess milk production’ and ‘poor milk quality’ as their reason for rejecting farmers milk. All of this has pushed farmers into debt, with many contemplating selling their cows and leaving their livelihoods.¹⁶

It is not only farmers who are suffering because of the beef ban, but everyone connected to the cattle economy in India, including the local economies linked to once vibrant large cattle fairs, which were renown across India, and famed for their massive quantum of animal trade. A recent report,¹⁷ from Sonpur, Bihar, one of Asia’s largest cattle fairs, speaks for itself. Cattle traders Bilath Singh, Ram Naresh Singh, Sachitanand Choudhary and Kedarnath Thakur blame militant and misinformed Hindu groups for the massive collapse of their business and destruction of the famous fair. They report a halving of cattle sales this year and a huge fall in buyers. Media reports suggest that five years ago there were over 25000 cows at the fair. In 2014, there were nearly 2,000 cows, which dropped to around 100 in 2015. The traders blame the cow protector brigades and their politics of banning beef and cow slaughter for the loss of their trade. The Sonpur fair, located 30 kms from Patna, is sprawled across 500 acres and has been held every year for centuries. It is said that Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (340-298 BC), bought horses and elephants at this fair.

The ban on beef, places a huge pressure on farmers to continue to rear animals. It is evident, however, that farmers too are challenging the beef ban because it has severely impacted their earnings from animals that they wish to sell. Unfortunately, a combination of utter ignorance and strong prejudices/biases inform several media reports of cattle sales, where they blame the cattle trader, many of them Muslims, of forcing farmers to sell their animals.¹⁸

 

Threats to impose a nationwide ban on beef consumption and cattle slaughter also ignore the close relationship between those who eat beef and those who look after cattle. In India, cattle have always been relished and their meat is a critical source of nutrition for various communities – including Adivasis, Dalits, Christians, Muslims and several other castes (many of whom are too scared to admit they eat beef).

A Dalit social activist asserts: ‘The Brahmins and other agraha (upper) castes who are cow worshippers have never in their lives ever grazed the animal, fed it, cleaned its dung or buried its carcass. For all that they have used our labour: we graze, we feed, we clean the sheds and dung, we bury the carcass, and we eat beef.’

‘The so-called upper castes visit our hamlets in search of beef, and are scared to publically acknowledge their beef eating practices,’ says an adivasi community leader from Telangana. ‘This year, Hindu families hired cows from us for the Godavari Pushkaralu because there are no cows left in caste rural Indian villages, where people worship cows and shun beef! We adivasis, on the other hand, eat beef, plough our fields with cattle, and farm with cattle manure; therefore we continue to own cows and cattle herds!’

 

In this land of the holy cow, depleting grazing resources of common lands and forests, disappearing roles for indigenous cattle breeds in agriculture production as providers of milk, energy, manure and beef, policies to replace indigenous breeds with crossbreds, coupled with a ban on slaughter of cattle in several parts of India, have led to plummeting cattle populations and the cow fast becoming a creature of the past.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn. If you really want to protect the cow: do not ban beef, cattle slaughter and the ecological culture that sustains the bovine economy.

 

*. An earlier version of this article was published in The Wire.

Footnotes:

1. S. Rajeshwaran, Gopal Naik and R. Albert Christopher Dhas, Rising Milk Price: A Cause for Concern on Food Security. Working Paper No. 472. IIMB, 2014

2. Government of India, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th Livestock Census.

3. http://www.gsejournal.org/content/47/1/31

4. Compendium of Area and Land Use Statistics of Andhra Pradesh 1955-56 to 2004-05. Directorate of Economics and Statistics: An Outline of Agricultural Situation in Andhra Pradesh 2007-08. DES, Hyderabad.

5. Op. cit., fn. 2.

6. USDA Foreign Agriculture Service. GAIN Report No. IN 4080. India Livestock and Products Annual 2014.

7. Sheep and goat populations tend to fluctuate, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing. However, the overall trends of future populations are consistently positive.

8. ‘Neck Deep in Debt, Farmers Resort to Distress Cattle Sale’, The Hindu, Adilabad, 1 January 2015.

9. ‘Drought, Beef Ban Force Distress Sale of Cattle in Villages’, The Times of India, 17 May 2015.

10. Ibid.

11. ‘Drought Impacts Cattle Sale’, The Hindu, Vijayapura, 18 December 2015.

12. Deccan Chronicle, 30 November 2015.

13. Op. cit., fn. 11.

14. S. Ramdas. ‘Death of Small-Farmer Dairies Amidst India’s Dairy Boom’, Economic and Political Weekly 1(19), 2015.

15. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coimbatore/dairy-farmers-pour-milk-on-road/article7253411.ece). Farmers unions protested this price fall.

16. ‘Milkmen in the Soup’, Down to Earth, 1-15 December 2015.

17. Asia’s Largest Cattle Fair Flops, Traders Blame Beef Politics, IANS, 17 December 2015.

18. Deccan Herald, Kalaburagi, 24 November 2015.