Last year when the 2020 Global Hunger Index (GHI) was out, Indians were taken by surprise as the country was ranked 94, among 117 countries, and was listed among the nations where the hunger situation was ‘serious’.Experts point out that one of the main reasons behind this was the lack of quality proteins, essential amino acids and micronutrients in the diets of Indians, which lead to undernutrition in childhood and obesity in adulthood.
This could be associated with the low consumption of meat and eggs among citizens. The average per capita consumption of meat and eggs in India is around 5.5 kg and 79 eggs per annum. This is several folds lower than the global average of 40 kg meat and more than 200 eggs per annum. Also, studies show that in India, only six per cent of the total calories consumed comes from proteins, compared to the global average of 30 per cent.
This highlights the need for increasing the intake of meat and eggs among Indians. According to UN body Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock products such as meat, poultry and egg proteins typically possess higher biological value, net protein utilisation, Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAS) and Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS) than vegetable sources.
Moreover, animal-sourced foods provide multiple nutrients simultaneously, whereas vegetarian foods lack several essential amino acids and bio-available nutrients.To ensure high produce and availability of wholesome meat in India, it is essential that the livestock resources are efficiently utilised. This includes steps to boost their integrated production, processing and marketing, to fetch increased economic returns to the farmers as the livestock production system in India is a livelihood activity.
Investments need to be increased to improve infrastructure at slaughterhouses and wet markets to enhance food safety and community wellbeing, while keeping up markets as inclusive public spaces where local vendors provide quality fresh products at reasonable prices.
Creation of live animal markets separately for each species considering bio-security issues cannot be stressed more, owing to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, which brought the world to its knees and has been blamed on the unhygienic conditions of a wet market in China. There is also a need to develop more hygienic slaughterhouses, waste disposal and effluent treatment facilities in peri-urban areas and to take up training and certification of producers, processors, retailers, butchers etc.The development of livestock sector will not just provide nutritional security to the country, but will ensure improvement of economic conditions for lakhs of people and contribute to the economic wellbeing of the country as well.
Enhancing the income of rural households
It may be mentioned here that the livestock sector contributes 12 per cent to the rural household income, and nearly 45 to 60 lakh people are directly or indirectly employed in the poultry industry. On top of this, the buffalo meat export sector employs about 2.25 lakh workers across India, in both the domestic slaughterhouses and leather sector.
According to the estimates made in 2012 by the Government of India, an increase of one egg and 50 grams of meat in the per capita consumption in India would create an additional employment opportunity for about 25,000 people.Meat, poultry and egg sectors in India contribute 24.08 per cent (`2.51 lakh crore) to the total output of livestock sector, which stands at around `10.43 lakh crores per annum.
The Hyderabad-based National Research Centre on Meat plays an important role in developing the Indian meat sector towards an efficient and organised activity, to efficiently utilise the country’s livestock resources to provide meat and its byproducts. The Institute, which functions under its parent body Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), was established in 2007.
Since then, it has been playing a pivotal role in conducting basic and applied research in various aspects of meat science and technology and has been providing various services, which include capacity development in the livestock sector, provision of technology transfer to meat businesses, operation of an agribusiness incubator for startups, provision of support on Intellectual Property Right for technology commercialisation to small businesses and maintenance of the Meat Research Information Repository. Last year, the NRCM was granted the Food Safety System Certification (FSSC) 22000 certification, for slaughtering chicken and processing ready-to-eat chicken products.
Dr. S. B. Barbuddhe, M.V.Sc., Ph.D.
Director, ICAR - National Research Centre On Meat