indian economy current affairs 2017 cattle trade rules - NEOIAS

INDIAN ECONOMY CURRENT AFFAIRS 2017 CATTLE TRADE RULES

• The government on 23rd May 2017 notified new rules tightening trade in livestock and transport of cattle to ensure their welfare at animal markets and also prevent smuggling. The rules prohibit the sale of cattle for slaughter at animal markets, effectively barring this nationwide, including in states such as Kerala which allow the slaughter of cows. The new rules include buffaloes in their definition of cattle and this will likely jeopardize the buffalo meat export business as it will disrupt the supply of spent buffaloes, according to a meat exporters’ association. • Environment ministry notified Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 on 23 May 2017. THE NEW RULE NECESSITATES: • Rules list detailed measures for protection and welfare of cattle in animal markets. Cattle, as per notification means, bulls, bullocks, cows, buffaloes, steers, heifers and calves and camels. It also brings very strict rules for cattle trade and bans trade of cattle for slaughter in animal markets, such as ploughing and dairy production. • The rules mandated that animals intended to be slaughtered would be brought directly from farmers in farms, and those in animal markets would only be traded for agricultural purposes. • Both purchaser and seller have to give an undertaking that the cattle sold in these markets are not for slaughter. Purchaser has to provide documentary proof that he is an agriculturist also give an undertaking that he will not sell the animal for at least six months from the date of purchase. • The animal market committee will have to ensure that the purchaser will not sell the cattle for slaughter, not sacrifice the animal for religious purpose and not sell the cattle to a person outside the State without the permission as per the State cattle protection or preservation laws. • As per the notification, animal markets are defined as “means a market place or sale-yard or any other premises or place to which animals are brought from other places and exposed for sale or auction and includes any lairage adjoining a market or a slaughterhouse and used in connection with it and any place adjoining a market used as a parking area by visitors to the market for parking vehicles and includes animal fair and cattle pound where animals are offered or displayed for sale or auction”. Traders say this definition of animal markets make it very difficult for them to procure animals. NEO IAS 0484-3190310, 9446331522, 9446334122 www.neoias.com | www.youtube.com/neoias |

www.facebook.com/neoias

|

Page 1 www.twitter.com/neoias

FROM THE SIDE OF GOVERNMENT OR ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ABOUT THE RULE • The rules will ensure food safety and traceability of animals. It will also ensure cattle are not smuggled or slaughtered illegally. • Now the cattle for slaughter can only be bought from farmers from their farms directly. The slaughter house agents who used to buy such animals from the markets can now buy them from farmers directly from their farms - thus eliminating the middlemen. NEGATIVE EFFECTS  ON ECONOMY: • India exported 1.33 million tonnes of buffalo meat from 2016-17, worth about $3.9 billion. It is among the largest beef-exporting countries, globally. • India's meat and leather industries are worth more than $16 billion in annual sales. • It could create large scale unemployment as the beef and leather industry employ millions of workers. • It would affect several industries; meat, leather, food, pharmaceuticals and transport. • While the rules do not make it illegal to sell cattle outside of the animal markets for slaughter, it will become practically impossible to do so.  ON FARMERS: • Traders have to now procure from farmers directly and send them to slaughter houses without taking the animals to markets. This means individual farmers will have fewer avenues to dispose spent buffaloes which now fetches them over Rs20,000 per animal. • It would affect their financial security as a large percentage of a dairy farmer’s income comes from the sale of unproductive/spent animals. • As dairy farmers will no longer be able to sell their non-productive animals at cattle markets, they will be expected to feed and maintain them, which will hurt their primary income.  ON WEAKER SECTIONS: • It would affect the employment, especially among Muslims and Dalits. • There have been several violent attacks and lynchings by cow vigilantes against suspected of either storing meat or transporting cattle for slaughter. • The leather industry also employs several lower-caste Hindus, mostly in menial jobs like in tanneries, whose livelihood may get affected after the notification.

NEO IAS 0484-3190310, 9446331522, 9446334122 www.neoias.com | www.youtube.com/neoias |


|


 ON DAIRY SECTOR • If farmers are unable to get the full economic value of their cattle after it stops giving milk, especially for buffalo which is allowed to be slaughtered for meat, the lost income will have to be incorporated in milk prices, implying price of milk and milk products may increase in the near future. • Also, dairy owners fear it will be difficult for them to purchase and transport animals due to the rigorous paperwork and undertakings required, as also explaining to vigilantes on the street that the animals they are transporting are not for slaughter. • Farmers have been moving away from rearing cows to raising buffaloes as the later gives more milk and spent animals can be sold for slaughter. The new rules will lead to significant dip in price of buffaloes, and increase the risks while transporting animals, even for dairy purposes.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS • CATTLE TRADE RULES GO AGAINST 1960 LAW: Restrictions placed by the new rules contravene the very law — Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (PCA) of 1960 — under which it has been notified. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules of 2017 permit the sale of cattle in markets only to verified “agriculturists”, who have to give an undertaking to the authorities that cattle will not be sold or slaughtered for meat. Nor shall the animal be used for sacrifices. The animal will be used only for farming. The rules take away the rights of the owner to even sell the carcass of an animal dying of “natural causes” in the market. The rules prescribe that the carcass NEO IAS 0484-3190310, 9446331522, 9446334122 www.neoias.com | www.youtube.com/neoias |


|


will be incinerated and not be sold or flayed for leather. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, enacted on December 26, 1960, however, does not impose any such restriction. It does not ban a cattle owner to sell the carcass of his animals for leather. The legislative intent of the 1960 Act is to “prevent the infliction of unnecessary pain or suffering on animals”. Delegated legislation has to be in conformity with the objective of the parent Act as well (Kerala Samsthana Chethu Thozhilali Union vs State of Kerala (2006)). To prevent slaughter of cattle is not the objective of the Prevention of Cruelty Act. • SLAUGHTER FOR FOOD: The Act further recognises slaughter for food. Section 11 of the Act does not categorise slaughter of animals for food as cruelty. It makes a specific exemption for “destruction of any animal as food for mankind unless such destruction or preparation was accompanied by the infliction of unnecessary pain or suffering.”When a public interest litigation (PIL) petition came up for hearing before the Supreme Court to ban animal sacrifices for religious purposes, the court had specifically noted how Section 28 of the Act mandates that “nothing contained in this Act (1960 Act) shall render it an offence to kill any animal in a manner required by the religion of any community.” • FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS VIOLATION: The restriction on trade of cattle or carcasses in livestock markets will have to be tested on the touchstone of the fundamental right to occupation, trade or business under Article 19 (1) (g) to see whether it is “reasonable.” The Rule also threatens Article 14 that provides equality before law and prohibits discrimination, Article 21 that protects life and personal liberty and Article 29 that protects the interests of minorities. • REAL OBJECTIVE BEHIND THE RULE: If the main subject of the notification was the regulation of livestock markets, why was it issued by the Ministry of Environment and not the Animal Husbandry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, which deals directly with this issue? Moreover, on what ground can the slaughter of any animal for food be prevented under the PCA, when it explicitly recognises that animals may constitute “food for mankind”? What the Act prohibits is only the “infliction of unnecessary pain and suffering” when animals are consumed as food. Such legal infirmities are bound to be challenged in court, but meanwhile the economic costs of this decision will merit a close watch. If estimates that 90% of slaughtered buffaloes are bought and sold in animal markets are correct, then the trade will be crippled. The Centre must address the concerns of the trade as well as of those who suspect the notification is a part of a Machiavellian plot to influence and curb food choices. If the government’s real interest was indeed the prevention of cruelty to animals NEO IAS 0484-3190310, 9446331522, 9446334122 www.neoias.com | www.youtube.com/neoias |


|


due to slaughter, there cannot be any constitutionally acceptable reason for leaving out chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, fish, rabbits, etc. • RULES WERE NOT PLACED BEFORE THE PARLIAMENT:

• MISLEAD THE GENERAL PUBLIC: This practice involves camouflaging a controversial provision with seemingly progressive and innocuous provisions in order to deceive and mislead the general public. It was done in the case of Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill, wherein the provisions introducing limit on third party insurance were sugarcoated with provisions increasing penalty for traffic violations, thereby making people believe that it was a ‘Road Safety Bill.” Likewise in the Aadhaar Act, which was introduced as a money Bill touted to be having the objective of plugging subsidy leaks, provisions permitting private entities to use Aadhaar data for their private purposes were sneaked in. Following the same mischievous tactic, the said Rules have been framed. • RESTRICTION ON INTER-STATE SALE: The Rules contain restrictions on interstate sale. As per Rule 22(e)(iv), the purchaser of cattle cannot sell cattle outside state without permission, as per state cattle preservation and protection laws. So a trader is restricted from effecting sale of cattle to another state, where cattle slaughter is not prohibited. If cattle slaughter is permissible in one state, why should there be a restriction in exporting cattle to such state? Also, Article 301 of the Constitution declares that trade, commerce and intercourse throughout the territory of India shall be free. It has been held in in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh vs Mirzapur Moti Kuresh Jamat (2008), and In Re Ramlila Incident (2012) that what one eats is one’s personal affair and forms part of right to privacy under Article 21. • FARMER IS THE VICTIM: If markets for spent buffaloes and cattle cease to exist — which is what the Environment Ministry’s rules effectively do — the ultimate victim would be the farmer. The ordinary dairy farmer who may need to dispose of one or two unproductive animals a year has no means to supply these directly to a slaughterhouse. The latter, in turn, cannot economically NEO IAS 0484-3190310, 9446331522, 9446334122 www.neoias.com | www.youtube.com/neoias |


|


source from hundreds of scattered individual producers, each selling one or two animals a year (unlike the 5-10 litres of milk they would sell daily that also makes direct procurement a viable proposition). The institution that makes trade in unproductive bovines possible is the market, which brings together the sellers (whether farmers or primary aggregators) and buyers (butchers or agents of slaughterhouses) for these animals on a single platform.

Cattle markets are typically weekly affairs where, say, 500 farmers come and sell their animals to 50 suppliers to slaughterhouses. This is a more efficient system than the same buyers going to each individual seller’s home; the farmer also benefits from multiple bidders, who are absent in a direct sourcing arrangement. Unlike in the West, there aren’t separate categories of “beef cattle” and “dairy cattle” farmers in India. The farmer who rears buffaloes for milk sells the same animals for slaughter when they become unproductive. By killing the market for slaughter livestock, the government may end up destroying the market for dairy animals as well. • ABSENCE OF ANY STAKEHOLDER CONSULTATIONS: Whether it is the meat, dairy and leather industries, farmer organisations or state governments responsible for regulating “markets and fairs” under Entry 28 of List-II of the Constitution — none apparently had the faintest idea about the rules while in the process of drafting. • EXPANSIVE DEFINITION OF “ANIMAL MARKETS” One may feel that the ban is only with respect to sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets and that one is still free to sell cattle elsewhere. But, the definition of “animal market” given is quite wide and expansive. The phrase NEO IAS 0484-3190310, 9446331522, 9446334122 www.neoias.com | www.youtube.com/neoias |


|


“lairage” adjoining a market or a slaughterhouse is doing the mischief. ‘Lairage’ refers to a place where animals are kept before slaughter. Most slaughterhouses keep the animals to be slaughtered near. Even if one animal is kept near the slaughterhouse, the place occupied by the animal would be a ‘lairage’, and consequently it would become an ‘animal market’ as per the definition of the Rules. This is actually a ploy to efface the difference between ‘animal markets’ and ‘slaughterhouses’, thereby making most ‘slaughterhouses’ ‘animal markets’ as defined in the Rules. As a result of this, one can’t even seek to sell cattle directly to a slaughterhouse. This will have a far-reaching impact on small-scale operators of slaughterhouses and abattoirs. Small-scale operators are in effect precluded from procuring cattle for slaughter, driving them out of their trade. SUPREME COURT RULING AND THE PRESENT STATUS  The Supreme Court suspended the Government ban on the trade of cattle for slaughter.  Since the ruling, the Central government is planning to address all the contentious issues and reframe the rules once again. SUGGESTION If the intention is to stop the infliction of unnecessary pain and suffering on animals, then one solution is to encourage modernisation of abattoirs (slaughter houses), with regulators enforcing rigorous standards for how livestock must be treated.

NEO IAS 0484-3190310, 9446331522, 9446334122 www.neoias.com | www.youtube.com/neoias |


|
