ANALYSIS

Meaty
Tales of
Vegetarian
India
Indians are eating more meat and
enjoying it. Higher incomes, global food
chains and a vast population of young
people indifferent to religious taboos are
shattering myths about "vegetarian
India", finds LATHA JISHNU . But
this appetite for meat has
environmental and political
fallouts

ANALYSIS

ILLUSTRATIONS : SORIT / CSE

E ARE non-veg. Thats

how
Vishal
Jain
describes himself and his
younger brother Ankit.
Non-veg, shorthand for
non-vegetarian, is Indias
quaint
contribution
to the sociology and
culture of food, a hold-all term that signifies
we are consumers of meat of some kind
chicken, beef, mutton or pork. Or fish. Or
eggs. Perhaps, all of these. To declare that
one is non-veg, or eats non-vegthe term is
interchangeableis a necessary distinction
in a land fabled for its vegetarianism
and made legendary by its most famous
practitioner, Mahatma Gandhi.
Vishal Jains declaration underlines
the shrinking nature and number of those
who abide by a meat-free diet. For the
brothers belong to one of the few religious
communities who are rigidly vegetarian.
The Jains eschew even vegetables that
grow underground for fear of killing any
creatures when these are pulled out. Vishal,
28, a software techie in Hyderabad, says he
took to eating meat with the advent of the
chicken burger, courtesy an American fast
food chain. I worked late hours and this
was a convenience food. But also tastylike
nothing I had eaten before. Besides, the meat
itself was not so much in your face.
From chicken in a bun, he went on
to other non-veg fare that Hyderabad is
traditionally famous for, such as haleem, the
citys signature dish which is a thick broth
of wheat, lentils and mutton/beef cooked
specially for festivals. And he introduced
Ankit to its epicurean delights.The brothers,
however, are careful to keep this hidden from
their parents who are strict in their religious
observances. One reason the two broke
religious taboos is the environment.
At the workplace, colleagues, although
not exactly cosmopolitan were open to
change and experimenting, while the urban
ambience and culture made this easier,
explains Vishal. Hyderabad is a meat-loving
city, with both the Muslim and Andhra
cuisine celebrating it in diverse dishes.
Recently, its municipal commissioner
Somesh Kumar was reeling off statistics
to impress a conference of mayors about

its meaty profile. According to him, 70 per

cent of Hyderabads 7.8 million population
is non-vegetarian, consuming as much as
300,000 chicken, 8,000 goat/sheep, 2,500
buffalo and 50 swine daily. On peak days,
the usage simply doubles.
In a country where food and dietary
habits are governed by complex rules based
on religion, caste and region, the old ways
are yielding place to the new. Tastes have
changed and what was
considered infra dig by
Low on meat
some meat eaters in earlier
times is todays flavour of
the day. Traditional meateaters look down upon
Annual per capita meat
those stuffing themselves
consumption in India
on mass produced broiler
chicken as upstarts and
lament the inability of
the neo non-vegetarians
Annual per capita meat
to appreciate the joy of all
consumption of the world
kinds of meat. K Dasgupta,
a communications professional working in Delhi,
reminisces about the
changing profile and
Annual per capita meat
sociology of meat-eating.
consumption in the US
At our home, for instance,
till well into the mid 1990s,
Source: A 2007 report by the Food and
Agriculture Organization
a typical week used to be
three-four days of fish, and
mutton on Sundays. We
rarely ate chicken; it was considered food for
inferior people.
There was also the question of
availability. As a kid, I would sometimes
take sandwiches with cold cuts to school
and on those days I was quite a star, says
Dasgupta about the 1980s. Close to
where we lived in West Delhi there was a
place that sold salami and hama rarity
in those days. In fact, some of my young
relatives would visit our house just to have
those cold cuts. I remember I would look
forward to eat rolls on my visit to Calcutta
(Kolkata). Today, there is a roll seller almost
every kilometre in middle class localities
in Delhi.
Increasing affluence in cities has changed
all that. The frozen kebabs have become
ubiquitous and in every little market in
residential areas a momo vendor or two and

3.2 kg

38.7 kg
125 kg

www.downtoearth.org.in 37

ANALYSIS

shops selling cold cuts abound. For those who can afford
it, meat is readily available now and in a smorgasbord of
optionsuncooked, ready to cook, frozen, from street
food vendors and takeaways to a host of restaurant
options. These range from Michelin-starred facilities
offering steak tartare to the run-of-the-mill korma joints.
Only one class in India is eating meat, declares
nutritionist Veena Shatrugna, and thats the well-to-do.
I would say our per capita meat consumption is pathetic.
Her contention is that the vast majority of Indians,
around 80 per cent, is non-vegetarian and should be
eating much more meat to meet their required dietary
intake of calories and proteins to fight malnutrition.
Instead the government has been pushing a brahmanical
concept of dietary requirements over the past 70 years
(see Forced vegetarianism on p43).
Without our knowledge we have been practising
an upper caste nutritional science, says Shatrugna
who was deputy director of the National Institute of
Nutrition, the Hyderabad-based research organisation
of the Indian Council of Medical Research. Without
batting an eyelid the government accepted the rda
(recommended dietary allowance) which assumes the
whole country is vegetarian. Indians should be eating
much more meat for nutritional reasons.
Consumption figures bear her out. According to a
global meat consumption chart compiled by fao (Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) in
2007, India logged in last in a total of 177 countries. Its
annual consumption of meat per person was just 3.2 kg at
a time when Americans were eating as much
125 kg per head and the world average was
In India, meat- as
38. 7 kg. Now, Indias per capita consumption
eating is looked is 5.5 kgalthough some estimates place it
down upon by the loweragainst the world average of 43.1 kg.
upper castes and American per capita consumption of chicken
a 1993 ASI survey alone is 50.1kg.
The question of vegetarian numbers
found that nearly
opens
up a huge and vexed debatea debate
five per cent of
fraught
with caste and religious prejudices.
all scheduled
The
question
is whether more Indians are
castes had turned
eating meat now because they can afford it
vegetarian to avoid
if the number of vegetarians is declining
the discrimination or
at a rapid rate. What is the actual number
and contempt of vegetarians in the country? The most
authoritative study is the People of India survey,
a mammoth enterprise of the Anthropological Survey
of India (asi) completed in 1993. The eight-year study
was steered by its director-general Kumar Suresh Singh
and covered every rite, custom and habit of every single
community in the country.
At the end of it, the army of asi researchers found
that of the 4,635 communities, nearly 88 per cent were
38 DOWN TO EARTH

meat-eaters. And they devoured all kinds of flesh.

Several communities in the Vindhyas ate field rats.
Those living along the banks of the Cauvery feasted
on baby crocodiles, civets and jackals. In many parts of
the country, people who insisted they were brahmins
the survey, however, was based on communities and not
casteand vegetarians said they ate fish and meat.
Definition of vegetarianism in India thus tends to be
fluid. One explanation is that Indians are snobbish about
their food habits and culture and what they consume
becomes a status symbol. Meat-eating is looked down
upon by the upper castes and, not surprisingly, asi found
that nearly five per cent of all scheduled castes had turned
vegetarian to avoid the discrimination and contempt. For
example, the Musaharsthis is a community of over two
million in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh
are at the bottom of the caste heap for eating rats and
reviled for their dirty food habitsalthough in many
other cultures rodent meat is acceptable.
India is full of closet meat-eaters because we are a
nation of hypocrites, says food writer and researcher
Pushpesh Pant. All taboos and religious strictures on
food dont apply once people are out of their homes.This
16-31 DECEMBER 2014

ANALYSIS

is particularly the case with men and young people.

A 2006 State of the Nation survey conducted by
the Centre for Study of Developing Societies (csds)
for Hindu-cnn-ibn reinforces the asi report that the
overwhelming majority is non-vegetarian. It revealed
that only 31 per cent of Indians are vegetarians. The
figure was even lower at 21 per cent for families in which
all members are vegetarian. Another nine per cent of
the population are vegetarian who eat eggs. Says csds
director Sanjay Kumar: The figures did not come as a
big surprise. It is a perception, and widespread, that India
is vegetarian.
Vegetarianism, the study revealed, is more a function
of inherited cultural practices than individual choices
although this seems to have changed in the eight years
since the csds study. What came through clearly is that
the majority of all Hindus are non-vegetarian. On the
other hand, eight per cent of Christians surveyed turned
out to be vegetarian.
Data compiled by the National Sample Survey
Organisation (nsso) of the government has been
showing a clear increase in meat consumption in recent
years. Although nsso covers just 100,000 people in its
16-31 DECEMBER 2014

surveys, these provide the largest official data

NSSO data compiled
on consumption and expenditure. The latest
during 2011-12 and
Household Consumption survey (Round 558)
released in July
conducted during 2011-12 and released in
this year shows
July this year shows both rural and urban
that both rural and
India are spending more on milk, meat and
urban India are
eggs as consumption of these items is rising
spending more on
much faster than that of cereals. Animal
products have also contributed to 33 per cent
milk, meat and eggs
of the incremental food inflation over the past
and consumption of
five years, a figure that is expected to be higher
these items is rising
in the future.
much faster than
Not surprisingly, 37 per cent of
that of cereals
agricultural output growth between 2005
and 2011 came from animal products, says
a Credit Suisse analysis, with poultry rising the fastest
in this category. Chicken consumption has grown at
a phenomenal rate in India which is rated the fourthfastest growing market in the world. nsso pegs it at 2.5 kg
per person. An explanation for Indias chicken mania can
be found in the recently-released oecd-fao Agricultural
Outlook 2014. It says, Lower income consumers tend
to enter the meat market through poultry and, to
a lesser extent, pork, leading to higher consumption
as incomes increase. Nevertheless, for all meats,
as income per capita increases and food becomes a
smaller share of total expenditure, the income elasticity
decreases significantly. (oecd is the Organisation of
Economic Cooperation and Development, a grouping
of rich nations).
Pushpesh Pant has another explanation why chicken
is flying off plates. It is religion-neutral unlike beef and
pork, and the young these days are fond of having meat
whenever they eat out. As working life changes and
better incomes allow people to experiment with different
foods, the myth of vegetarian India is finally crumbling.
The young in particular, and India has the most youthful
population according to the 2011 Census, are a vital force
in shaping the changes. Global fast food chains which
have been proliferating since the 1990s, the emergence
of stores selling meat, especially those devoted to chicken
in all forms, have helped convert millions of youth
like Vishal.
Demography is central to this narrative of the
changing taste for flesh.Those in the age group of 18-35
years account for more than a third of Indias 1.2 billion
population, and it is they who dominate spending in the
consumer economy. A key to the generational shift in the
changing food culture is the explosion of fast food joints
across the country, a majority of them hawking items
that are meat-based. These quick services restaurants,
or qsrs in trade terminology, have seen their highest
growth in the past five-six years. According to market
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ANALYSIS

analyst crisil Research, the market is booming. Sales

worth `3,400 crore in 2013-13 are expected to more than
double to `7,000 crore over the next three years, growing
at an average annual rate of about 27 per cent.
In the last three decades, India has seen radical
changes in the modes of producing and consuming
food and yet very little analysis has been carried
out, points out Amita Baviskar, associate
professor of sociology at the Institute of
Economic Growth, Delhi. Baviskar has
been studying the spread of industrial
foods, or processed items, in Indian
diets and finds that a celebration of
consumerist gratification has replaced
the earlier discourse of austerity.
The trend towards meat eating
is one of the big changes, she admits,
although this is not exactly her sphere
of research. Across the world people
eat meat or more of it as prosperity
increases. Colin Sage, food geographer
with the University of Cork, Ireland,
writes that the past five decades have
witnessed a marked meatification
of the human diet, spreading from longestablished high-consumption societies
to the emerging market economies
of Asia and Latin America which have
been undergoing a nutrition transition.
Eating large quantities of meat has become
a sign of affluence, modernity and a right of
consumer choice.
Globally, meat consumption has increased,
with fao reporting that production had risen to a
new peak of 308.5 million tonnes in 2013 because of
purchasing power, urbanisation, and changing diets.
But curiously, it is India with its levels of intake that is
grabbing attention. India came into the spotlight last
year when it became the largest exporter of beef, buffalo
meat or carabeef actually, overtaking Brazil
Globally, meat and other traditional supplies. But a clutch
consumption has of recent reports have expressed concern on
increased, with the changing pattern of meat consumption
FAO reporting within vegetarian India and China.
One such study was by a team of
that production
scientists,
led by Sylvain Bonhommeau of the
had risen to a new
French Research Institute for Exploitation of
peak of 308.5
Sea, who found that the world has turned
million tonnes in the
more carnivorous and put it down to higher
2013 because of meat consumption by China and India.
purchasing power, Published in the Proceedings of the National
urbanisation, and Academy of Sciences (pnas) in December 2013,
changing diets the comprehensive study of global food
40 DOWN TO EARTH

consumption looked at how eating patterns had

changed over half a century from 1961-2009 in 176
countries. It used data on 102 types of food, ranging from
apples and molluscs to meat and fats, compiled by fao
and used this to calculate the human trophic level (htl).
The trophic level is a metric used to show the position of
different species in the food chain, with plants and algae
at Level 1 and predators at the higher spots.
According to the Bonhommeau study, the
increase in fat and meat consumption has moved
16-31 DECEMBER 2014

ANALYSIS

humans up the global food chain largely on account

of higher intake by China and India which had offset
declines in other countries. We find the global median
htl in 2009 to be 2.21. The median htl is weighted by
the population size of each country, and thus this trend
is mainly driven by China and India, whose median htl
has increased from 2.05 to 2.20 during this period, it
said.The reason: economic growth, which allowed these
countries to support the human preference for high
meat diets.
16-31 DECEMBER 2014

Writing on the study, Nature noted that

OECD-FAO
in China and India, hundreds of millions
Agricultural
of people have lifted themselves out of
Outlook 2014
povertyand often out of diets that involved
predicts that
little more than rice. This is not strictly true
developing
since meat of some kind has invariably been
countries will
part of the diets of even the poor.
Within a month of the pnas report, account for 83 per
Heinrich Boll Stiftung, the German
cent of extra meat
environmental foundation, brought
consumed in 2023,
its Meat Atlas which echoed the
with Asian markets
same conclusions. Its report,
consuming more
put together with Friends of
than half of it
the Earth Europe, the largest
grassroots
environmental
group in Europe, found that while
consumption in the biggest markets of
the US and Europe was growing slowly, or
even stagnating, it was picking up hugely
elsewhere. The booming economies in
Asia and elsewhere will see around 80 per
cent of the growth in the meat sector by
2022.The biggest growth will be in China
and India because of huge demand from
their new middle classes.
Similarly, oecd-fao Agricultural
Outlook 2014 predicts that developing
countries will account for 83 per cent of extra
meat consumed in 2023, with Asian markets
consuming more than half of it. In Asia, total
meat consumption is expected to increase by 26
per cent, driven by both strong income growth and a
growing and increasingly urban population.
However, India has still not taken to the industrial
farming of meat except in the case of chicken (see Red
and whiteand far from green on p44). Officials of
the animal husbandry department of the Ministry of
Agriculture and the Agricultural and Processed Food
Products Export Development Authority of the
Commerce Ministry emphasise that the quality of
meat produced in India is much in demand because
livestock is reared in natural conditions. For the time
being, at least, the country may not have to worry about
the potentially harmful consequences of industrial
meat production.
And for the time being, India is still the centre of the
vegetarian world with the largest number of vegetarians
across the globe. But if the current trends on meat eating
accelerate, the image of a vegetarian India of the kind
associated with Gandhi will fade soon. The myth has
already been shattered.
Log on to www.downtoearth.org.in for
Indias chicken mania
www.downtoearth.org.in 41

ANALYSIS

The beef against

meat and eggs
Religious sensitivities in India get easily
hurt over food such as meat and eggs

"

e used to go to their area sometimes and

sit in front of one house. People used to
gather there, wondering how this highcaste person has come to their place.
Sometimes we asked from them for water to drink and
had food together. Based on this relationship, we started
telling them the reasons why people kept them at a
distance. We said that the society condemns you because
your living is dirty, your food habits are dirty, and your
thinking is dirty. Therefore, you have to change. With
such constant hammering, the dalits were also made
vegetarian.
This is celebrated anti-corruption crusader Anna
Hazare (quoted by author Mukul Sharma) explaining
how he made his village Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra
meat-free. Food in India is hugely contested terrain,
owing to caste prejudices, and religious and regional
differences. Meat quite often becomes a flashpoint with
latter day constructs of cultural nationalism making a
prohibition on beef-eating a mark of Hindu identity.
What happens is that people who follow unacceptable
dietary traditions are invariably usually hammered.
And so are those who write about ancient Indias food
preferences.To state the historical truth that meat, beef to
be more precise, was consumed in Vedic times and eaten
by sages, brahmins and ordinary mortals is to invite rage
and retribution.
When R S Sharma, professor of history at Delhi
University, wrote in his Ancient India that the ancient
Aryans were beef-eaters, he was charged with
Meat quite hurting the sentiments of the Hindus. That
often becomes was in the 1970s. In 2002, D N Jha, another
a flashpoint historian from Delhi University, published
Myth of the Holy Cow, there was violence
with latter day The
and he had to be given police protection.
constructs Ironically, none of what these academics had
of cultural to say was new; these were well chronicled
nationalism making facts. Religious sensitivities tend to get easily
a prohibition hurt in India over food such as meat and eggs.
on beef-eating As the politics of food spreads, vegetarian
a mark of Hindu fundamentalists have been hitting at more
identity vulnerable targets: the midday meal provided
42 DOWN TO EARTH

to underprivileged children in government schools. In

state after state, governments have given into small but
powerful religious groups who have objected to eggs
being given to Indias hugely undernourished children
in the primary and upper primary sections.The campaign
against eggs is spearheaded by the leaders of the ultra
orthodox Jain religious community.
In February this year, Rajasthan Chief Minister
Vasundhara Raje announced firmly that there was no
question of supplying eggs in the midday meal scheme
and in food distributed at anganwadi centres. We
respect religious sentiments of the people. We will not
distribute eggs or any other [edible] item that hurts
anyones religious feelings, Raje told a press conference
in Jaipur. Rajasthan follows Madhya Pradesh and
Karnataka in denying children a rich source of protein.
Barring a handful, most other states, too, provide no eggs
or milk either but on grounds of budgetary constraints.
The serving of beefit is a cheaper and much better
source of protein than chickenand pork in university
hostels is another volatile issue that has led to violent
16-31 DECEMBER 2014

ANALYSIS

Forced Vegetarianism

or three decades and a half, VEENA

SHATRUGNA has worked on nutrition and health issues, especially
those concerning women. She has
campaigned vigorously against the brahmanical influence on the "balanced diet"
prescribed by the government to meet the
calorie needs of the poor, calling it a cereal overload that has led to myriad health
problems. In a conversation with LATHA
JISHNU, the nutritionist explains the politics of food that has left a legacy of abiding malnutrition. Excerpts:
The majority in India eats meat, yet why are the diets recommended in India entirely vegetarian?
The RDA (recommended dietary allowance) was calculated in labs by
well-meaning nationalist scientists and economists like C Gopalan,
V M Dandekar, Nilakanth Rath and M S Swaminathan. When you study
nutrition in a lab, cost becomes a major factor. These were all upper
class, upper casteBrahmins, for the most partwho used their own
preference for vegetarian diets to offer simple, scalable solutions to
provide "adequate" calories to the vast numbers of the poor. They did
not understand the food culture of the poor people who ate a variety of meats from mutton to pork, rabbits, tortoises, beef, and birds,
apart from a whole lot fruits, berries, tubers and eggs.

protests over the years. Attempts by dalit and other

students to challenge the mainstream Hindu food culture
by organising beef food festivals have always ended in
violent confrontation with upper caste students led by the
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (abvp), the student
wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who maintain that the
serving of beefpork is not mentionedwould hurt the
religious sentiments of Hindus. Staff organisations and
the university administration have invariably supported
abvp. Even less successful has been the campaign to
make the non-vegetarian menu more inclusive with the
addition of beef and pork. As a counter to such trends
is the emergence of red-blooded groups of meat lovers
across the country. Filmmaker Deesh Mariwala who
set up Mumbai Meat Marathon (mmm), a network of
people who enjoy their meat, says it is a reaction to the
vegetarian campaigns that have made traditional meat
dishes difficult to access.mmm is essentially about finding
the best quality meat dishes at lower end restaurants,says
Mariwala who has been setting up such networks in the
cities where he is stationed.
16-31 DECEMBER 2014

What was their prescription?

Cereals and more cereals. RDAs from the early 1960s were loaded with
cereals. Nuts, oilseeds, fruits, flesh foods all went out of the window.
Without our knowledge we have been practising upper caste nutritional science. What was forgotten was that people who recommended cereals were consuming adequate quantities of milk, milk products and
other items like fruit and nuts as part of their own vegetarian regime.
Why was this done?
It is easier for governments to deal with cereals, to procure and distribute. But actually they were taking many short cuts. About 60-80
per cent of Indians enjoy meat but the government ignored this fact.
The entire effort was directed at finding the most economical solution.
Are you saying this cereal overload is responsible for malnutrition?
Some vital nutrients like good proteins, Vitamin A, Vitamin B12, and
even folic acid are found largely in animal foods. Animal foods help
absorption of iron present in greens, and this is important in a country where 50-85 per cent of women and children are anaemic. Vitamin
B12 is found only in animal foods, not surprisingly we now have an epidemic of B12 deficiency. The over-emphasis on cereals and absence
of animal foods in the diet spills into the middle and upper classes too,
and excess of this has contributed to obesity and related chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension.
Full interview on www.downtoearth.org.in
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ANALYSIS

Red and white-and

far from green
Environmental cost of producing meat is
unsustainable because of industrial farming

he 21st century has been marked by concern

about the impact of livestock on the environment,
a concern that grew sharper in the wake of the
2006 report by fao, Livestocks long shadow, which said
the livestock industry is directly or indirectly responsible
for 18 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions (ghgs)
a figure higher than that for the entire transport sector.
It brought into focus, the role of livestock in
environmental degradation by driving deforestation
and degradation, agricultural intensification and
industrialisation, and as a sector that competes for
natural resources. But grabbing attention was its impact
on climate change, water and biodiversity. Last year,
however, it revised downwards the figure of emissions to
14.5 per cent of ghgs but emphasised that livestock plays
an important role in climate change.
The 2013 report, titled Tackling Climate Change
through Livestock, says cattle used in both milk production
and beef account for the majority of emissions,
respectively contributing 41 and 20 per cent of the
sectors emissions. Pig and poultry meat along with eggs
add nine and eight per cent respectively. The strong
projected growth of this production will result in higher
emission shares and volumes over time, it warns. Already,
global meat production is at a new peak of 308.5 million
tonnes in 2013 and is set to rise further with developing

44 DOWN TO EARTH

countries producing and consuming more meat.

The quest for cheap and plentiful meat has resulted in
factory farms where more and more animals are squeezed
into smaller lots in cruel and shocking conditions. Such
practices have resulted in many of the worlds health
pandemics such as the avian flu. Worldwide, livestock
are increasingly raised in cruel, cramped conditions,
where animals spend their short lives under artificial
light, pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones,
until the day they are slaughtered, notes Meat Atlas, a
far from edifying report on the state of meat production.
The report brought out by Heinrich Boll Stiftung and
Friends of the Earth Europe is subtitled Facts and figures
about the animals we eat and highlights the problems that
arise from a complex set of issues related to prosperity,
health and sustainability.
Water usage is one of the gnawing worries.
Worldwatch Institute points out that a major strain
on the environment is the water-intensive nature of
meat production, especially beef. It calculates that an
estimated 15,000 litres is needed for every kilogram of
beef compared with 3,400 litres for rice, 3,300 litres for
eggs and 255 litres for a kg of potatoes.
At the root of the problem is the transformation
of production systems. The small farmer and the local
butcher shop are now a distant memory in the developed
world where ruthless efficiency is the order of the day
as consolidation of the meat industry reaches epic
proportions. For instance, in the US, feedlots for 100,000
head of cattle are now in operation. Such staggering
economies of scale are necessary to bring down costs in
an industry where profit margins are thin.
To highlight the scale of operations, Meat Atlas gives
the example of jbs sa, a beef company based in Brazil,
which is the worlds top food and beverage company
with sales of $38.7 billion dollars in 2012. A relatively
unknown name, jbss has global capacities to slaughter
85,000 head of cattle, 70,000 pigs, and 12 million
birds daily. This meat is distributed in 150 countries
as soon as the carcasses are disassembled.
But in Asia and Africa, it is completely the reverse.
Small farmers are the backbone of the meat industry
and their methods of production do not damage
the environment because ruminants are grazed on
pasture which binds their emissions into the soil. But
change is taking placein chicken production in
India and pork in China where factory methods are
becoming the norm. For those who dream of a meatfree world, it is important to remember that livestock
production accounts for 1.4 percent of the worlds gdp
and provides livelihood to 1.3 billion people, most of
whom (987 million) are the poor.
Full story on www.downtoearth.org.in
16-31 DECEMBER 2014