The Centre’s drive to increase indigenous breeds of cattle seems to have had little impact among cows kept for dairy purposes, according to data from the 20th Livestock Census released on Wednesday. There are 4.85 crore desi (native) milch cows in the country, less than 1% higher than the 4.81 crore population in the last census in 2012.
On the other hand, the milch population of exotic and crossbred cattle — including varieties such as Jersey or Holsteins which have much higher milk yields — saw a whopping growth of 32% over the last seven years, growing from 1.9 crore to 2.5 crore animals.
Milch cattle are cows kept for the purpose of milk production. Among this category, therefore, foreign breeds now have a population that is more than half the population of desi breeds.
The Rashtriya Gokul Mission, launched by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) government in 2014, aimed to promote indigenous desi breeds. However, the total population of such cattle — male and female together, milk-producing or not — actually dropped 6% to 14.2 crore animals, while exotic and crossbred cattle saw an overall growth of almost 27% to 5 crore animals.
The Agriculture Ministry refused to provide the 2019 data on the population of stray cattle, saying that only “provisional key statistics” were being released for now. In 2012, there were almost 53 lakh stray cattle in the country.
Since the imposition and implementation of stringent anti-slaughter laws by the BJP-led government at the Centre, as well as several State governments, exacerbated by harassment from cow vigilantes, many farmers have been abandoning their non-milk producing cattle. Hordes of these stray cattle have been menacing villages and ravaging crops according to reports from several States. It remains to be seen what the 2019 census data shows on the numbers of stray cattle in the country.
