ear.
Exports account for 44% of beef production in the country. The growth in exports thus underpins production increases.
For all that, Indian beef is not really beef as say the Americans know it — not a patch on Angus. It is water buffalo — and males and unproductive females at that — which exporters sell at lower cost to the meat-hungry, but price-sensitive consumers in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia.
Slaughter of cows and milk-producing buffaloes is banned under Indian laws. But the USDA still counts it all as beef, and economically, it competes in the same markets, the report said. To its credit, deboned frozen buffalo meat, also called carabeef, from India is lean and has positive blending characteristics important to processors. As per the most recent livestock census, conducted in 2007, buffaloes comprise a third of the bovine herd in India.