 "India's beef boom threatened as old tensions flare")
As a centuries-old dispute over beef intensifies in India, cattle transporter Shafiullah Mohammad Sharif Shah is caught in the middle.
Hindu vigilantes set fire to one of Shah's trucks in December as it carried six water buffaloes to a government-owned slaughterhouse outside Mumbai, he said. They beat the driver and set the animals free, according to Shah. With such attacks becoming common, business has slowed so much that Shah says his five trucks could be repossessed if he can't make a monthly loan payment of Rs 150,000 ($2,390).
India's annual beef exports are the world's second-largest, jumping 11- fold in a decade to $4.35 billion. During the past year, hardline Hindu groups have stepped up efforts to end cow slaughter and combat a network of small, illegal plants that produce cattle meat for domestic use. "The atmosphere in the abattoir is very tense," said Shah, 38. "We're being harassed everywhere and the attacks are worsening. The industry doesn't know how to deal with this and everyone from transporters to dealers and farmers is scared." Vigilantes haven't made any distinction between buffaloes and dairy cows, targeting transporters of both.
The country ranks sixth in the world among beef consumers, and demand is up 4.2 per cent in the past five years. Much of the industry's growth has been in exports to Vietnam, China and Africa. Shipments will total 1.95 million tonnes this year, more than triple what was exported a decade earlier, the US Department of Agriculture estimated in an October report. Only Brazil sells more overseas.
Beef exports fetched $4.4 billion in 2013-2014, compared with $395 million a decade earlier, according to the state-owned Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority. By comparison, the US exported $6 billion of beef in the recent financial year. Indian beef sells for $100 to $200 less per tonne than meat from its main competitor, Australia, said Ashik Hussain, a supplier of beef to exporters in Maharashtra.
Live cattle futures for April delivery fell 0.4 per cent to close at $1.54 a pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Monday after climbing to a seven-week high of $1.555. Prices, which reached a record $1.7275 a pound in November, are down 5.8 per cent this year.
Hindu vigilantes set fire to one of Shah's trucks in December as it carried six water buffaloes to a government-owned slaughterhouse outside Mumbai, he said. They beat the driver and set the animals free, according to Shah. With such attacks becoming common, business has slowed so much that Shah says his five trucks could be repossessed if he can't make a monthly loan payment of Rs 150,000 ($2,390).
India's annual beef exports are the world's second-largest, jumping 11- fold in a decade to $4.35 billion. During the past year, hardline Hindu groups have stepped up efforts to end cow slaughter and combat a network of small, illegal plants that produce cattle meat for domestic use. "The atmosphere in the abattoir is very tense," said Shah, 38. "We're being harassed everywhere and the attacks are worsening. The industry doesn't know how to deal with this and everyone from transporters to dealers and farmers is scared." Vigilantes haven't made any distinction between buffaloes and dairy cows, targeting transporters of both.
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The growing no-beef agenda threatens to disrupt an industry that expanded under secular governments that promoted agriculture in India, which saw farm exports grow faster than any other nation over the past decade.
The country ranks sixth in the world among beef consumers, and demand is up 4.2 per cent in the past five years. Much of the industry's growth has been in exports to Vietnam, China and Africa. Shipments will total 1.95 million tonnes this year, more than triple what was exported a decade earlier, the US Department of Agriculture estimated in an October report. Only Brazil sells more overseas.
Beef exports fetched $4.4 billion in 2013-2014, compared with $395 million a decade earlier, according to the state-owned Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority. By comparison, the US exported $6 billion of beef in the recent financial year. Indian beef sells for $100 to $200 less per tonne than meat from its main competitor, Australia, said Ashik Hussain, a supplier of beef to exporters in Maharashtra.
Live cattle futures for April delivery fell 0.4 per cent to close at $1.54 a pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Monday after climbing to a seven-week high of $1.555. Prices, which reached a record $1.7275 a pound in November, are down 5.8 per cent this year.