On 11 July, the Supreme Court upheld a stay on the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock) Rules, 2017. In doing so, the court temporarily suspended regulations that would have jeopardised the Indian livestock sector, particularly the bovine sub-sector, and, thereby, the livelihood of millions of farmers across the country.
However, the Centre is expected to re-introduce an amended notification by the end of August, after consulting various stakeholders, including members of affected industries. The questions still remains: What should one expect from the revised rules?
Here are some salient points to consider while the rules remain under review.
Problematic Rules
The most controversial provisions under Rule 22 were the ‘restrictions on the sale of cattle’ in animal markets. Cattle trade was restricted to “agricultural purposes”, prohibiting slaughter. “Cattle”, as defined in these rules, includes “cow, calf, bull, bullock, buffalo, heifer, steer and camel”.
The 2012 Livestock Census estimates that the cattle herd includes close to 191 million cows and bulls, 109 million buffaloes and 0.3 million camels. Their categorisation as “cattle”, as in the rules, is scientifically incorrect.
More importantly, it aggregates animals that have enjoyed different levels of protection from slaughter thus far, therefore evolving separate value chains.
The closing of trade for slaughter at animal markets impedes the livestock value chain. This will have many damaging effects on India’s economy and would be counterproductive to its social development goals.
Underestimating Animal Markets
The rules underestimate the importance of animal markets as an outlet for “unproductive” livestock. Old, non-lactating females and old and excess males, whose utility as draught animals has been eroded by the increasing mechanisation of Indian farms, form a large portion of the livestock brought to the cattle markets. The effective cost of feeding and rearing such cattle is extremely high.
In fact, several state governments, in whom the authority is vested, only allow old, unfit and incapacitated animals for slaughter, and certify them as such.
Selling excess animals, or destocking, is also an important adaptation strategy to overcome drought and natural calamities. Thought of as “banks on hooves” or “living ATMs”, livestock is sold to provide necessities such as food grains, schooling and emergency medical care.
In the absence of state support for these activities, these animals are likely to suffer from neglect and abandonment. This can be seen in the case of camels that were banned from slaughter in Rajasthan in 2015, subsequent to being declared the state animal. Despite the state rewarding the birth of every calf, the camel population is declining due to the lack of economic opportunities for the animal.
The cattle slaughter industry has effectively responded to this economic reality. Today, India is the largest exporter of beef, mostly carabeef from water buffaloes, in the world. Beef is India’s top export item, even surpassing the famed basmati rice. The industry effectively harnessed the potential of small-scale domestic livestock rearing, and provided employment to millions.
The restriction on the sale of animals for slaughter at animal markets will repress this and allied industries, such as leather.
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Narrowing the Scope of Animal Markets
The rules envision that animals for slaughter should be bought directly from farmers. This is rather problematic on two accounts: first, it is not feasible for traders to purchase animals from individual farms. Markets act as important aggregators and facilitators for trade and provide negotiation power to farmers to procure a fair price for their animals.
Most Indian livestock is held by small, marginal and landless farmers, including nomadic pastoralists, who comprise an estimated 8-10 percent of India’s population, and whose primary livelihood is livestock rearing. The average herd size is less than five animals.
State governments regulate these markets and earn a transaction fee for each animal sold.
Secondly, the definition of an animal market under the rules is so broad that even bringing a single animal out of its homestead can make an area a market. Once sold, the cattle cannot be resold for a period of six months, hampering the pooling of livestock at the village level.
While Rule 22(b) prohibits the sale of cattle for slaughter, Rule 22(d) restricts engagement with animal markets altogether. The rule requires that buyers at animal markets prove their status as “agriculturalists” or produce “relevant revenue documents” even when they buy for “agricultural purposes”. This is extremely difficult for farmers and pastoralists in the absence of private landholdings.
Only large and industrial animal farmers would be able to operate within such market conditions, eroding all the environmental and socio-economic benefits of this vast and valuable industry.
Hampering Sustainability
The Indian livestock sector can be considered one of the most sustainable in the world. Used for multiple purposes, such as milk, manure and labour in interdependent mixed farming systems, Indian livestock is largely fed on crop residues, by-products and open vegetation.
The average human edible protein output ratio for 2005-07 for Indian livestock is 4.3; this means that for every unit of feed input, Indian livestock produces 4.3 units of protein. This is higher than the figure of 1.17 for Brazil or 0.53 for the US, indicating that Indian livestock effectively recycles agricultural waste to produce useful food products.
Beef industry is a by-product of the dairy industry, with India being the largest producer of milk in the world. This is unlike intensive systems as in Brazil, the second largest exporter of beef in the world, where a part of the cattle stock is reared solely for slaughter for export. This type of intensive cattle ranching is the largest driver of deforestation in the Amazon. Ironically, a large part of the Brazilian herd is comprised of Indian cow breeds.
The Way Forward
The Ministry of Environment and Forests says that the purpose of the regulation is to protect animals from cruelty and not the regulation of existing trade in cattle for slaughterhouses. It also says that the rules will remove the scope for illegal sale and smuggling of cattle.
While certain clauses of the rules, such as some but not all under Rules 7 and 14, contribute to preventing animal cruelty, the focus on this segment of the livestock value chain is misplaced to meet these objectives.
On the contrary, banning the sale of cattle for slaughter at animal markets further pushes this sector under the shroud of informality. One might even argue that the stringent rules may foster illegal and harmful trade in cattle. Instead, allowing trade for slaughter gives the opportunity to track and monitor the conditions of the animals.
The ban also fuels the taboo against cattle slaughter and beef consumption that has led to the under-regulation of slaughterhouses and the meat market by making the government and public unwilling to engage with this segment.
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Forward and Backward Linkages
There is a need to create backward and forward linkages to the sale of cattle for slaughter to ensure the sustainability of the sector and the welfare of both the animals and their rearers.
For example, estimates suggest that 14 million calves die each year of neglect as farmers are unable to bear the burden imposed by ‘surplus’ males. Schemes such as ‘Salvaging and Rearing Male Buffalo Calves’, that was launched in 2010, could give farmers incentives and provide back-end linkages to capitalise on the potential for greater meat and leather exports.
Subsidies for transporting animals and schemes for modernising abattoirs should be launched to assure humane treatment of animals, and to promote scientific and hygienic procedures. While the government heavily invests in the dairy sector, contributing to a 21 percent growth in buffalo numbers since 1997, the meat segment suffers from gross underinvestment.
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Social Protection for Small Farmers
Livestock supports poverty alleviation and enhanced food security. It is an important source of supplementary income for rural households. Livestock distribution is more egalitarian than land assets, and promotes intra-household equality since women are often responsible for tending to cattle. These advantages are eroded in the absence of viable marketing options.
Small and landless farmers must receive state benefits for their livestock rearing activities. Cattle insurance and credit against livestock assets could be important instruments to promote greater security for this sector.
Providing supportive services and incentives for sustainable livestock farming are crucial to the economic stability many small farmers within the sector, to preserve their right to livelihood and to ensure its future environmental sustainability.
(The author is an international development professional and independent researcher with experience working with smallholder farmers and pastoralists in western India. She holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford and works with agriculture and sustainability organisations. She can be reached @natasha_maru. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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