India’s beef exports to grow at 8% in next five years: ICRA

The Dollar Business Bureau

Notwithstanding the controversy over beef consumption in India, the country’s beef export is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8% over the next five years.

India’s beef exports would reach close to Rs.40,000 crore over the next five years, ICRA said in a report.

“In the long term, ICRA expects buffalo meat exports to continue to report healthy growth, driven by improving infrastructure, a sizeable buffalo population the relatively lower price of Indian buffalo meat, and steady demand in the international market,” said Sabyasachi Majumdar, Senior VP, ICRA.

Indian buffalo meat exports have surged at a CAGR of 29% to Rs 26,682 crore in 2015-16 from Rs.3,533 crore in 2007-08.

The country’s beef exports have accounted for about 20% of the world's total buffalo meat shipments in terms of volume. It has, in the process, become the largest exporter of buffalo meat in terms of volume, thereby overtaking Brazil and Australia, ICRA said.

“For the last two consecutive years, buffalo meat has been the highest agri-related export from India and its contribution to the total export revenue has almost doubled to 1.56% in 2015-16 from 0.76% in 2010-11,” it said.

“While India has been exporting buffalo meat for almost two decades; this industry has only gained momentum in the last decade. This can be attributed to multiple factors, such as - increasing demand from developing countries (like China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc), slaughtering method meeting the religious requirements of certain ethnicities, price competitiveness, high buffalo population, and low domestic consumption,” Majumdar said.

Uttar Pradesh has the highest share (28%) of India’s total buffalo population. The state has emerged as the country’s leading buffalo meat-producing state - sheltering about 60% of the total standalone slaughter houses, standalone meat processing units, and fully-integrated meat processing units, the study pointed out. 

To address the challenges related to the infrastructure of the industry, which substantially lags in standards compared to global requirements of beef exporting nations, the government has sought participation of the private sector. It has also introduced schemes to develop a comprehensive regulatory framework to ensure higher quality.