Indian cows and buffaloes are going online(economist.com)
economist.com
Indian cows and buffaloes are going online
https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/04/21/indian-cows-and-buffaloes-are-going-online
55 comments
Cattle theft is a big problem in India. It might sound silly to most people in west but being a still developing(poor) country with major population still being dependent on agriculture, large population owns cattle unlike US/Canada where a small percentage of ranchers are large cattle owners. It is very common for a small family in village to own a couple of cows and a big portion of their wealth is the cattle. Since cattle are not RFID marked a neighbor can easily steal the cows. Police has to regularly deal with such cases in rural India that someones calf is stolen. That poor family was depending on raising that calf or selling the milk for next few years. It is a serious economic setback for them.
> It is very common for a small family in village to own a couple of cows and a big portion of their wealth is the cattle.
Which is actually the historically typical case! (Since the agricultural revolution, anyway.) The word “capital” even traces its meaning to “head of cattle”:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/capital#Etymology
Which is actually the historically typical case! (Since the agricultural revolution, anyway.) The word “capital” even traces its meaning to “head of cattle”:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/capital#Etymology
There's a reason that most of the fines and taxes described in Leviticus are denominated in livestock.
I live in a region of the US that has more cattle than people, and cattle rustling is a thing here too. I think there is no type of property that people won’t try to steal, so wherever there are cattle, there is cattle theft.
amriksohata(1)
I tried something similar in Australia in 2012, targeted at hobby to mid scale beef cattle farmers. The key concept was removing the superfluous transport step from seller to cattleyard (physical auction house), and just facilitating logistics between seller directly to buyer by running the auctions ourselves (online). As Australia is very large, transporting even a small percentage of your herd to a central auction yard is a significant expense, and non-sales require return shipping as well. Not to mention additional stress on the animals.
I hope this particular solution increases animal welfare in India, when I have visited I have always been disappointed that "sacred" animals are allowed to eat garbage on the street. Possibly health tracking or similar can be implemented into this service, to allow buyers to check the animal's history. Yes, fraud will be an issue.
I hope this particular solution increases animal welfare in India, when I have visited I have always been disappointed that "sacred" animals are allowed to eat garbage on the street. Possibly health tracking or similar can be implemented into this service, to allow buyers to check the animal's history. Yes, fraud will be an issue.
> I have always been disappointed that "sacred" animals are allowed to eat garbage on the street.
The "sacred" part is extraneous.
Consider that at one time the trash used to be all organic (mostly vegetable) waste and the cows were essentially transforming that into usable calories as milk. This was at a time when raw ingredients like grain were milled close to home, often in the home, so lots of cow-edible organic waste was produced. In that context, it's a great way of squeezing every usable calorie/nutrient out of what would otherwise be wasted.
With time, agrarian India became industrial and then consumerist India, and with that came the advent of large scale disposable plastics and the culture of throwing them away, but without the waste management infrastructure of developed societies. This resulted in what you saw.
What was once an ancient efficiency hack turned into an unpriced externality, with both aesthetic and environmental consequences.
Of course there is also a lack of civic sense in allowing the situation to persist, but that is a present in any society (not just India) with high corruption and low institutional trust.
The "sacred" part is extraneous.
Consider that at one time the trash used to be all organic (mostly vegetable) waste and the cows were essentially transforming that into usable calories as milk. This was at a time when raw ingredients like grain were milled close to home, often in the home, so lots of cow-edible organic waste was produced. In that context, it's a great way of squeezing every usable calorie/nutrient out of what would otherwise be wasted.
With time, agrarian India became industrial and then consumerist India, and with that came the advent of large scale disposable plastics and the culture of throwing them away, but without the waste management infrastructure of developed societies. This resulted in what you saw.
What was once an ancient efficiency hack turned into an unpriced externality, with both aesthetic and environmental consequences.
Of course there is also a lack of civic sense in allowing the situation to persist, but that is a present in any society (not just India) with high corruption and low institutional trust.
It's just nuts to me all the examples there are of this basic pattern, where a traditional organic waste pipeline that had worked great for millennia was abruptly ruined in the 20th century by the introduction of plastic trash.
All the major rivers are essentially this— Yangtze, Nile, Ganges, plus a number of indigenous cultures which have disposal practices that very much do not work for long-lived plastic items (tossed off a cliff, etc).
All the major rivers are essentially this— Yangtze, Nile, Ganges, plus a number of indigenous cultures which have disposal practices that very much do not work for long-lived plastic items (tossed off a cliff, etc).
Arguably the same pattern exists in our historical energy consumption. We moved from societies that mined recently sequestered biomass for energy (AKA wood burning) to a society that mined biomass sequestered eons ago for energy (coal, natural gas, petroleum) without realizing soon enough that the former of biomass was mostly atmospheric carbon neutral and the latter type was not at all carbon neutral.
And now we are paying the environmental consequences and trying to develop the global civic sense to fix the issue.
And now we are paying the environmental consequences and trying to develop the global civic sense to fix the issue.
> I have always been disappointed that "sacred" animals are allowed to eat garbage on the street.
This is unfortunately a result of a combination of factors including low income levels and poor garbage management/disposal in some places. No one explicitly "allows" cows (as opposed to restrict them) to eat plastic and the vast majority of folks would rather not have the cows eat plastics accidentally.
This is unfortunately a result of a combination of factors including low income levels and poor garbage management/disposal in some places. No one explicitly "allows" cows (as opposed to restrict them) to eat plastic and the vast majority of folks would rather not have the cows eat plastics accidentally.
Milk cattle are important sources of income in rural India. Milk is taken twice a day - in the morning and in the evening. It's used in the household and any excess is deposited in the village's "milk center"/"milk bank". The collection center writes down the volume and quality of the milk brought in and the agriculturalist gets cash once a month. So it's a little financial bank in that sense, too. Of course, everyone mixes in some water to increase the volume of milk and get paid a little more. But the collection center can do some quick tests to tell. I'm unsure how effective those are.
The cows/buffaloes produce milk every day as long as they're healthy and of the proper age. Feeding a calf as its growing up is an investment that pays off once they reach a proper age. But if a cow/buffalo doesn't feel well, it may stop producing milk for months a time, depriving the family of income. So there's risk. Each adult cow/buffalo can produce about 5000 RS a month in its prime. A government teacher might earn 10000-15000 RS a month. So even a few animals are significant source of income for rural families.
There's significant labor involved in keeping the animals fed and milked. One might have to go out and get grass from common lands or store enough dry feed from the rice/wheat harvest for the months when fresh grass isn't common. Or one might have to take their animals out to the fields for the whole day so they graze. It's hard to take a day off and go on a trip in these circumstances. So usually someone's around to at least milk the animals.
The cows/buffaloes produce milk every day as long as they're healthy and of the proper age. Feeding a calf as its growing up is an investment that pays off once they reach a proper age. But if a cow/buffalo doesn't feel well, it may stop producing milk for months a time, depriving the family of income. So there's risk. Each adult cow/buffalo can produce about 5000 RS a month in its prime. A government teacher might earn 10000-15000 RS a month. So even a few animals are significant source of income for rural families.
There's significant labor involved in keeping the animals fed and milked. One might have to go out and get grass from common lands or store enough dry feed from the rice/wheat harvest for the months when fresh grass isn't common. Or one might have to take their animals out to the fields for the whole day so they graze. It's hard to take a day off and go on a trip in these circumstances. So usually someone's around to at least milk the animals.
What do they do with the cow/buffalo if it stops producing milk?
This has changed quite a bit recently so there is a before and an after. The before story is that they would be sold to slaughterhouses via intermediaries. Sometimes these slaughterhouses would be located out of state as slaughter is banned in certain states. Often the intermediaries would be from the Muslim community.
With religion motivated cow protection being one significant platform on which the ruling party ran and won the elections, this has changed dramatically. There are two axes at play here, (i) the religious symbolism of cow that is dear to the Hindu supremacist ruling party and the (ii) Islamophobia axes of the same party. Consequently the cow slaughter has been drastically reduced in the states they control, by a concerted effort of the state machinery and by the actions murderous lynch mobs whose violence the government is, naturally, blind towards.
Now this has created a reverse problem, especially Eastern Uttar Pradesh -- hordes of abandoned cattle that not only have been damaging crops but also has been killing people. This problem has risen to such a head that in the recent election campaigns the prime minister on his campaign tour in these regions promised magical solutions to this problem of stray cattle that would be revealed only after counting of the votes. To my knowledge no such reveal has happened, but scores of temporary and underfunded cattle shelters did crop up weeks prior to the election.
As irony would have it their political platform of Go-raksha (protection of the cow) has morphed in to election campaigns of Go-se-raksha (protection from the cows). Of course to lighten this absurdity, the stray cattle are not referred to with the "go" prefix because that has been coopted by the said party. So these are referred to as 'awara pashu' (rogue animals) or "chutta saand" (stray bulls).
With religion motivated cow protection being one significant platform on which the ruling party ran and won the elections, this has changed dramatically. There are two axes at play here, (i) the religious symbolism of cow that is dear to the Hindu supremacist ruling party and the (ii) Islamophobia axes of the same party. Consequently the cow slaughter has been drastically reduced in the states they control, by a concerted effort of the state machinery and by the actions murderous lynch mobs whose violence the government is, naturally, blind towards.
Now this has created a reverse problem, especially Eastern Uttar Pradesh -- hordes of abandoned cattle that not only have been damaging crops but also has been killing people. This problem has risen to such a head that in the recent election campaigns the prime minister on his campaign tour in these regions promised magical solutions to this problem of stray cattle that would be revealed only after counting of the votes. To my knowledge no such reveal has happened, but scores of temporary and underfunded cattle shelters did crop up weeks prior to the election.
As irony would have it their political platform of Go-raksha (protection of the cow) has morphed in to election campaigns of Go-se-raksha (protection from the cows). Of course to lighten this absurdity, the stray cattle are not referred to with the "go" prefix because that has been coopted by the said party. So these are referred to as 'awara pashu' (rogue animals) or "chutta saand" (stray bulls).
With religion motivated cow protection being one significant platform on which the ruling party ran and won the elections, this has changed dramatically. There are two axes at play here, (i) the religious symbolism of cow that is dear to the Hindu supremacist ruling party and the (ii) Islamophobia axes of the same party. Consequently the cow slaughter has been drastically reduced in the states they control, by a concerted effort of the state machinery and by the actions murderous lynch mobs whose violence the government is, naturally, blind towards.
Even Congress party supported a ban on cow slaughter in various Northern states, going back into the 50s, long before BJP (the party you're referring to) was born.
You may want to read this article, which goes over the story of cow-slaughter ban in India: https://scroll.in/article/759157/a-short-account-of-indias-l...
Even Congress party supported a ban on cow slaughter in various Northern states, going back into the 50s, long before BJP (the party you're referring to) was born.
You may want to read this article, which goes over the story of cow-slaughter ban in India: https://scroll.in/article/759157/a-short-account-of-indias-l...
I am aware (in the same way that I am aware that BJP weren't the first political party in India to introduce special requirements to regulate interfaith marriage), but that was a good article thanks. I am not sure, however, what the point of you repartee was. It does not contradict my comment comment.
If you are aware that BJP wasn't the first party, and that Congress party actually banned cow slaughter in UP, Bihar, etc. long before BJP was born,
then how can you say:
With religion motivated cow protection being one significant platform on which the ruling party ran and won the elections, this has changed dramatically.
You can't really say BJP changed things "dramatically", if Congress was busy doing it 30 years before BJP was born!
With religion motivated cow protection being one significant platform on which the ruling party ran and won the elections, this has changed dramatically.
You can't really say BJP changed things "dramatically", if Congress was busy doing it 30 years before BJP was born!
The policies of BJP are still motivated by what they are, so my claim still stands. The changed dramatically is the methods, the spate of problems and the consequences of these policies from the recent past. I dont remember cow protection vigilante mobs in the UPAI and UPAII governments, nor do I remember, deaths and damage caused by abandoned cattle from those times. Am happy to reconsider my views in the face of evidence.
Not sure how this will work in this environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_vigilante_violence_in_Indi...
Cow smuggling is a much bigger issue, poor farmers have their cows stolen and it's their main livelihood, with fuel from manure and milk, yoghurt production.
None of the reported incidents involve stolen cows. Its basically lynching and similar incidents.
That was my first thought too
Never refer to wikipedia for anything even remotely connected to India. The cabal of Wikipedia editors responsible for content related to India is extremely prejudiced against India.
Is it just me, but doesn't it look like the cow on the left is starving to death?
Neither of them are in great body condition. Not quite as bad as they might look first off. They're a different type of cow than we're used to seeing in the US and much of Europe. The hips are always a little more sunk in than in beef cattle and maybe more than most milk cattle.
Sorry, the hips are always a lot more sunk in than say, an Angus cow. Not just a little bit. It's a pretty startling difference if you grew up in beef country. They've got a hind end more like your standard US and UK milk breeds.
Edit: The ones in the picture are in the indicus group/category/I don't know what the current technical term is. Angus, Jersy, Holstein, etc would be in the taurus group/ect.
Edit: The ones in the picture are in the indicus group/category/I don't know what the current technical term is. Angus, Jersy, Holstein, etc would be in the taurus group/ect.
[deleted]
I think they are buffaloes, but yes, both look malnourished.
They are cows. India has many indigenous breeds.
https://agritech.tnau.ac.in/expert_system/cattlebuffalo/Bree...
Definitely a cow. Just the indicus type rather than the taurus we see a lot more of in the US/Europe.
Other than what sounds like potentially lower fees to sell your cow overall. I don't see how this actually changes much as far as fraud and costs to move the cow and such goes.
It will also save the time and effort currently required for cattle trading by both sellers and buyers.
For instance, Animall (one of the companies mentioned in the article) is working towards building an online marketplace for cattle (like Amazon) rather than just a discovery platform (like eBay or OLX) and will be handling verification and logistics (think "Amazon Fulfilled"). This would solve fraud and also reduce the cost and effort for sellers/buyers in trading cattle.
P.S. I work at Animall
For instance, Animall (one of the companies mentioned in the article) is working towards building an online marketplace for cattle (like Amazon) rather than just a discovery platform (like eBay or OLX) and will be handling verification and logistics (think "Amazon Fulfilled"). This would solve fraud and also reduce the cost and effort for sellers/buyers in trading cattle.
P.S. I work at Animall
Because middlemen take your money and never give u cows. Generic facilities such as Police, law are not available for poor rural farmers in india. Moving cows is another big headache, people often run away with them.
I think the cows are self-driving.
Cowboys would say otherwise.
Pfft, that's nonsense! Everyone knows cows are girls!
(For ~legal~ HN downvoting purposes this comment is a joke.)
Meta: I think jokes are occasionally okay but they've got to be good quality and mustn't be written by someone who thinks highly of their jokes ;)
(For ~legal~ HN downvoting purposes this comment is a joke.)
Meta: I think jokes are occasionally okay but they've got to be good quality and mustn't be written by someone who thinks highly of their jokes ;)
Thank you for this. I'll have something to share with my Texan relatives.
They’re called bulls and I don’t think they can say an English word
Why the downvotes ;-) Thought that was funny
HN tends to discourage silly comments. It's a preference. Jokey comments tend to get the most upvotes and that tends to just become most of the discussion ... and that's not really discussion.
Cows do come back home if left on their own :)
Beef production is one of the worst climate carbon culprits
On top of that poor farmers have their cows stolen a lot in India, this cattle smuggling causes massive issues as the farmers are already in poverty and the cos is their main livelihood for fuel from manure, grazing, milk and yoghurt.
On top of that poor farmers have their cows stolen a lot in India, this cattle smuggling causes massive issues as the farmers are already in poverty and the cos is their main livelihood for fuel from manure, grazing, milk and yoghurt.
The carbon footprint is from keeping the cows alive as they emit a lot of methane which has 10x greenhouse effect compared with CO2.
I am not sure what carbon footprint has to do with cattle "smuggling" a term used by cow lynching mobs to accuse muslims transporting cows. The use of the word "smuggling" is key because the transporters actually own the cows, the lynch mob typically lynches the transporters and accuse the dead victim of illegal transport.
Your choice to mix up climate change and mob lynching is really weird.
I am not sure what carbon footprint has to do with cattle "smuggling" a term used by cow lynching mobs to accuse muslims transporting cows. The use of the word "smuggling" is key because the transporters actually own the cows, the lynch mob typically lynches the transporters and accuse the dead victim of illegal transport.
Your choice to mix up climate change and mob lynching is really weird.
Oh, so this is like the app Tudder?