Our Bureau, Mumbai
With access to a large natural resource base of over 160 million hectares of arable land, 15 million hectares of freshwater reservoirs, balanced bio-diversity, and diverse agr1o-climatic conditions, India possess a few natural advantages which have facilitated the sustainability & development of world’s largest livestock population here.
Despite the country being vegetarian majorly, the meat sector plays an important role for reaching food industry in the world and comes in the first five ranked agricultural commodities like rice, milk, sugar, and wheat.
Currently, India is the largest producer of animals in the world. Both animal husbandry and meat industry have a great socio-economic and cultural importance in the country.
As per industry research report “Fuelling New Cycles of Success in Food Sector through infrastructure development,” the current livestock population is over 278 million including 180.5 million cattle, 82.8 million buffaloes, 9.2 million goats, 4 million sheep and mammoth sized 450 million broilers. This research report was prepared by KPMG, in association with Ficci, Ministry of Commerce & Industry and Ministry of Food Processing Industries. The report has also expected annual growth rate of approximately 9.5 per cent in the next five years.
On other hand, the food processing industries has estimated that the livestock population will cross 322 million by the end of 2015. Methuen is also slaughtered for meat in North East and Sikkim. Rabbit meat is also used as a specialty in Kerala and some other states.
“The present India’s free ranging, fat-free and steroid meat is receiving universal recognition. There are over 40,000 veterinary centres which vigils and maintains quality has made this pink product one of the favorites,” Subodh Kant Sahai, former food processing minister quoted in his address speech in one of the international meat & poultry processing conference.