Trend and Composition of Export of Livestock Products in the Context of the WTO Regime

The continuous growth and transformation of the livestock sector offers substantial opportunities for agricultural development, poverty reduction, food security gains and improved human nutrition. Livestock sector has played an important role in achieving the goal of doubling farmers’ income, achieving an agri-exports target of US$ 60 billion by 2022 and further to US$ 100 billion by 2028. The present study attempts to analyses the trends and composition of export of livestock products during 1990-91 to 2021-22. The share of livestock sector in agriculture and allied sector has been continuously increasing from 17.95 per cent in 1950-51 to 30.13 per cent in 2020-21. Based on secondary data, the study highlights that export of livestock products from India increased from Rs.152 crore in 1990-91 to Rs.30953 crore in 2021-22, with CAGR of 19.92 per cent. Further, share of livestock products export in total agricultural exports increased from 2.53 per cent to 8.37 per cent and its share in agricultural gross value added also increased from 0.10 per cent in 1990-91 to 1.68 per cent in 2013-14, however, it has decreased to 0.78 per cent in 2021-22. The state-wise analysis of India’s export of livestock products revealed that Uttar Pradesh has the highest share with 45.51 per cent followed by Maharashtra (29.00%), Haryana (10.76%), Tamil Nadu (2.71%) and Gujarat (2.15%) during 2021-22. The main drivers of increase in livestock exports in 2021-22 were buffalo meat, dairy products, poultry products, goat and sheep meat and other meat. WTO regime has favourably affected the trade performance of livestock sector, as all livestock products registered higher growth rates post-WTO, compared to the pre-WTO period. The demand for Indian buffalo meat in the international market has sparked a sudden increase in meat exports. Buffalo meat dominated the exports with a contribution of over 79.52% in total livestock products export from India in 2021-22. The main markets for Indian buffalo meat and other livestock products are Vietnam, Malaysia, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and USA. The export of livestock products grew more than the agricultural exports in the country. There are five critical challenges that contribute to India’s relatively low rank among global agriculture exporters (9th position with 2.2% share in exports and 1.4% share in imports in 2020); low productivity and high logistics costs; limited value addition; export promotion and branding challenges; non-tariff barriers and quality issues. The efficiency at production level needs to be raised in order to make the product price competitive in the international market. India should have an effective and efficient market intelligence system to monitor developments in the world markets (price, subsidy levels, demand and supply) and link import tariffs to world prices. As physical infrastructure and logistics remain main impediments for exports of agricultural products from India, a holistic approach for overall enhancement of export logistics in terms of creating cold chain facilities for transportation and storage to reduce the logistic costs from the present 13-14 per cent to 8 per cent of GDP in next 5 years, so that our products become competitive in the global markets. Emphasis needs to be given for diversification of livestock exports for more products, particularly value added and processed products and more destinations with improved infrastructure, trained human resources and support facilities to move up the value chain and meet international standards like SPS measures, Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, and animal welfare related issues, etc under WTO regulations.