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By:

Parashram Patil

14 January 2026 at 8:49:45 pm

The Buffalo Billion

India’s vast dairy economy has turned ageing livestock into a $5-billion export engine and a new instrument of South-South trade. India’s enormous livestock economy is capable of sustaining both large-scale domestic consumption and a substantial international protein trade. According to livestock census data, the country has roughly 74.26 million sheep, 148.88 million goats and 9.06 million pigs, alongside vast standing populations of bovines and poultry. Together, these animal resources...

The Buffalo Billion

India’s vast dairy economy has turned ageing livestock into a $5-billion export engine and a new instrument of South-South trade. India’s enormous livestock economy is capable of sustaining both large-scale domestic consumption and a substantial international protein trade. According to livestock census data, the country has roughly 74.26 million sheep, 148.88 million goats and 9.06 million pigs, alongside vast standing populations of bovines and poultry. Together, these animal resources provide the raw material for domestic consumption as well as export-oriented meat production. The scale of the underlying livestock economy is matched by a sizeable processing infrastructure. Thousands of registered slaughterhouses and modern, export-oriented integrated meat-processing units operate under the regulatory framework of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA). National processing capacity exceeds 1 million tonnes annually, although utilisation remains relatively modest at around 40 to 50 percent. Major surplus-producing regions and export-processing hubs are concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab. India’s buffalo meat, commonly known as carabeef, has established a durable presence in international markets. Its appeal rests on a combination of lean texture, grass-fed characteristics and price competitiveness. Export volumes have recently reached approximately 1.42 million metric tonnes, generating more than $5.09 billion in international revenue. The geography of this trade is revealing. Vietnam functions as the principal logistical entry corridor and re-export gateway into wider East Asian markets. Malaysia provides consistent demand, supported by bilateral commercial ties and structured halal-certified import requirements. Egypt serves as an important intersection between North African and Middle Eastern markets, where both state and private-sector demand for protein remains substantial. Indonesia is another significant destination, although its import volumes fluctuate according to regulatory quotas and domestic food-security policies. In West Asia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia remain strategically important markets, driven by widespread demand for relatively affordable red meat. The Tariff Wall India’s competitiveness, however, does not translate automatically into market access. Global agricultural geopolitics continues to shape the buffalo-meat trade through preferential trade agreements, sanitary and phytosanitary regulations and persistent differences in tariff treatment. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, competitors such as the United States, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, as well as European producers including the Netherlands, Poland and Ireland, frequently benefit from duty-free or highly preferential tariff arrangements. Indian exporters, by contrast, face structural tariff disadvantages and stringent compliance requirements, limiting their ability to penetrate high-value Western markets more deeply. The competitive picture is similarly complicated in Asia. China’s extensive free-trade arrangements with ASEAN countries give producers such as Thailand preferential, including zero-duty, access for certain meat products. Other regional suppliers can face considerably higher duties, including tariffs of around 20 percent on selected classifications. Such disparities can erode India’s underlying cost advantage. Latin America presents another challenge. Trading blocs such as MERCOSUR provide preferential treatment to producers within the bloc, while countries such as Brazil enjoy lower tariffs in selected emerging markets. For India, operating outside these preferential networks creates another layer of competitive pressure. Two indicators underline the structural competitiveness of India’s meat exports. The Nominal Protection Coefficient (NPC) stands at 0.21, suggesting that domestic meat prices remain substantially below international reference prices. This gives Indian buffalo meat a powerful price advantage in overseas markets. The Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) index stands at 1.07, indicating that India possesses a revealed comparative advantage in the international meat trade. The figure points to a sector whose export competitiveness is supported by a relatively low domestic price base and an established presence in global markets. Yet price competitiveness alone cannot guarantee expansion. India must contend with tariff disadvantages across China, ASEAN and European markets, as well as the increasingly important non-tariff barriers created by sanitary and phytosanitary requirements. Meat as Statecraft Much of India’s buffalo-meat economy is effectively a downstream extension of its enormous dairy industry. The monetisation of ageing or economically less productive livestock can provide value to farmers while reducing pressure on scarce feed and fodder resources. What might otherwise represent a declining agricultural asset can therefore be converted into an exportable commodity. That dynamic has also acquired a geopolitical dimension. India has effectively transformed an internal agricultural cycle into a commercial bridge with developing economies across Southeast Asia, West Asia and Africa. India’s position in the global protein trade nevertheless remains vulnerable to sanitary gatekeeping, changing trade alignments and preferential regional blocs that favour competitors such as Brazil and Australia. India could strengthen bilateral veterinary cooperation, improve traceability and certification systems, and pursue targeted agreements that reduce non-tariff barriers. (The writer is a member of Maharashtra Agriculture Price Commission. Views personal.)

Unrest within Mahayuti

Updated: Jan 21, 2025

Mahayuti

Mumbai: The state administration on Sunday stalled the appointments of guardian ministers in Raigad and Nashik districts. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had cleared the appointments before he left for Davos in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum on Saturday. They are believed to have been stalled on behest of Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, who heads the state in absence of the Chief Minister.


NCP’s Aditi Tatkare and BJP’s Girish Mahajan were entrusted with responsibilities of guardian minister for the Raigad and Nashik districts respectively, where Shiv Sena’s Bharat Gogawale and Dada Bhuse had staked claims. Gogawale is a first-time minister while, Bhuse had been the guardian minister of the district during previous government under Eknath Shinde.


Shiv Sena, NCP and BJP all the three constituents of Mahayuti have strong roots in both the districts. However, the Shiv Sena and the NCP had been particularly on loggerheads there. The Shiv Sena, which had been demanding the guardian minister’s post in Nashik district has managed to win only two assembly seats in the district where the NCP has Six and the BJP has Five MLAs. On the contrary, in Raigad the NCP has won only one seat while the Shiv Sena and the BJP both have Three MLAs each in the district.


Sunil Tatkare, MP from Raigad Lok Sabha constituency and the stat unit president of the NCP and father of Aditi Tatkare, had been the guardian minister of Raigad between 2004 and 2014. Gogawale had always been his political opponent before Tatkare joined the Mahayuti government under Ajit Pawar’s leadership in 2023. Gogawale claimed that all the Six Shiv Sena-BJP MLAs in the district had opined in his favour to be the guardian minister of the district and after the decision to appoint Aditi Tatkare was announced, his supporters resorted to violent protests. They burnt tyres in bid to stall traffic on highway in the district. Reacting to the developments, Tatkare said that the issue should be pondered over after CM Fadnavis returns from Davos on Saturday and settled amicably.


In Nashik Girish Mahajan had been the guardian minister of the district between 2014 and 2019 when Fadnavis was the Chief Minister.


The post of guardian minister doesn’t have any constitutional mandate and is considered to be a political appointment. Guardian ministers head the district planning and development councils (DPDC) that control the funds for development works being carried out in the particular district. This control wields much of political power to the minister in that district whereby spreading the party in the district becomes much easier. This is the reason why the grass root politicians seem to be very sensitive to such appointments.


While Gogawale and Bhuse are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian ministers, some others like NCP’s Hasan Mushrif and BJP’s Pankaja Munde are unhappy about not being appointed as guardian district in their home districts of Kolhapur and Beed respectively. DCM Shinde is learnt to have gone to his ancestral village Dare in Satara district after the decision and BJP’s firefighters Chandrashekhar Bawankule and Girish Mahajan are expected to meet him there to try finding a way out of the issue.

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