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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The journey of a 400 kg buffalo -Harish Damodaran

The journey of a 400 kg buffalo -Harish Damodaran

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published Published on May 8, 2017   modified Modified on May 8, 2017
-The Indian Express

The Indian Express travels down the meat value chain in Uttar Pradesh to find a seamless system that’s now under strain.

FOR Puran Chand Sharma, dealing with Mohammad Sabir Qureshi is a twice or maybe thrice-a-year affair. But this transactional relationship is essential to sustaining his dairy farm operation involving 10 female buffaloes — three now in-milk, two pregnant animals, two young yet-to-calve heifers, and three one-year-old calves.

“The ones that are pregnant will start giving milk when those currently producing go dry. In the meantime, the jhoti (heifers) will also be ready to conceive. So, at any time, I’ll have three buffaloes together yielding 25-30 litres daily for me to sell at Rs 30-35 per litre,” explains the 60-something Sharma. So, where does Qureshi come in? Prompt comes the reply: “He takes care of the animals that have become a bojh (burden) on me”.

Sharma classifies the buffaloes that are a bojh into four categories. The first includes those that after about five lactations — by then, they’re 9-10 years old — have stopped producing enough milk to justify their continued maintenance. The second are infertile animals (“we won’t sell if they do not get pregnant the first time, but will if they don’t the second time too”). The third are the ones with damaged udders (“jiske thun bekaar ho gaye”). The last are male calves, sold even before they are a year old.

“These animals are of no use to me. If they are useful to him (Qureshi) and he is willing to pay me Rs 25,000 or more, why should I have a problem selling? That money I can use to buy a four-year-old, first-time lactating buffalo, capable of giving 2,000 litres annually, for Rs 60,000. This cycle of replacing old animals with new is what keeps my business going,” Sharma says in a matter-of-fact tone.

Agrees Chaudhary Maharaj Singh, a 2.5-acre, five-animal farmer from Madhaka, the village in Sadabad tehsil of Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras district to which Sharma belongs. “A buffalo has to be fed 10 kg bhusa (wheat straw), 1 kg khali (mustard oilcake) and 1 kg daliya (ground wheat) every day, whether or not it produces milk. For 10 litres yield, I have to increase the khali to 4 kg and daliya to 2 kg, and also give 1 kg of gur (jiggery). At today’s rates (Rs 6/kg for bhusa, Rs 20/kg each for khali and daliya, and Rs 40/kg for gur), it costs Rs 100 daily to feed an unproductive animal and Rs 200-plus for 10 litres,” he says.

Singh’s relationship with Qureshi is, again, purely transactional. “It doesn’t concern me what he does with our buffaloes. All I know is we farmers cannot afford to feed them,” he says.

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The Indian Express, 7 May, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/the-journey-of-a-400-kg-buffalo-cow-slaughter-uttar-pradesh-4644146/


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