Boosting livestock trade (Hindu Business Line)

Hindu Business Line published an op-ed by senior research fellow, Anjani Kumar and Abhishek Jha on how South Asia’s produce must appeal to foreign consumers. Livestock and its produce constitute one of the most promising commodities in the primary and processed food sector. Worldwide consumption has doubled since 1995; trade grew from $77.18 billion in 2000 to $233.7 billion in 2020. But exports from South Asia are about $3.66 billion, only 1.8 percent of the total global trade value; and the export of frozen bovine meat, that too mainly by India, is worth $3.10 billion. Until these challenges are addressed and combined with aggressive policy formation for expanding and upscaling the technology and capacity-building routes to come up with quality products, South Asian trade — intra-regional or with the world — will continue to be enervated.