Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
land to grow fodder on, these goatherds raise and graze their animals on open ground
- hillsides, parks and forest areas.
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However, this is where, in Maneka Gandhi's view, the similarity with cows ends, for she
regards the goat as a menace and the sponsored goat programme as an ecological disaster:
Protected wildlife sanctuaries are the last green areas in India and amount to a paltry eight per cent green cover
for the whole country. But even this figure is dwindling because goat owners need green for their goats and this
is where they find it. Each goat, according to a government survey, consumes ten acres of land before it is killed
at the age of two. Nor does it simply eat the grass like a cow - it actually pulls up the plant by the root, destroys
young shoots and leaves the earth bare. The topsoil flies off and pretty soon the land is barren. In Rajasthan, which
is a desert to begin with, the goats destroy whatever vegetation there is and encroach into the sanctuary area all the
time. The strong winds then scatter the sand from the ravaged area and the desert creeps up further … Even city
planting efforts fail for lack of tree guards. Why do we need tree guards? Because goats come and eat the plants.
So if the municipal authorities do decide to plant, they choose poisonous Oleanders or
Astonia calaris
, which is
known as the Devil Tree because no bird or animal will touch it.
Perhaps Maneka Gandhi is exaggerating. According to her figures, India's 115 million
goats must now be 'consuming' a quarter of the country's entire land area every year.
Nevertheless anyone who has kept both goats and cows will know how much more de-
structive goats can be, particularly towards trees, if left to their own devices - and one of
the main advantages of the sacred cow is that it can be left to its own devices.
55
Maneka Gandhi also alleges that the spread of goats is part of the reorientation of the
agricultural economy - including the informal economy of the commons - towards export
orientated industries which will enhance the GDP of the country. Meat production in In-
dia, she claims, between 1976 and 1994 (more or less the interval between Marvin Harris'
analysis and Maneka Gandhi's) shows a 17 fold increase in the production of beef and veal
to almost 1.3 million tonnes, and a nine-fold increase for buffalo to 12 million tonnes. The
value of meat exports multiplied over tenfold from 1980 to 1996 to seven billion rupees.
'India only eats 25 per cent of these animals. The rest is exported primarily to the Middle
East ...Every dead goat, for example, fetches approximately R250 (£4). '
However, exports of goat meat from India are miniscule - a mere 82 tonnes in 1999
when Maneka Gandhi's article was published in the UK. They have since risen to 572
tonnes in 2006, but this is still a tiny amount from a national herd over 100 million strong.
56
Most of the goat meat is exported, not from India to the Middle East, but from the coun-
tryside to the town. In 2005, an editorial in
The Times of India
made the following obser-
vations:
Though largely unobserved, a dietary shift is taking hold in India. A vast number
of vegetarians - 20 per cent of India's population - have begun to try out flesh foods
