Meat traders upbeat on West, Southeast Asia

New Delhi: Indian buffalo meat exporters are upbeat about the revival of demand from foreign markets after the lockdown ends and are in touch with buyers in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

The industry is reaching out to farmers to source cattle, organizing workers and scheduling their shifts to ensure social distancing, procuring protective facial coverings and gloves and discussing logistics with van transporters and ship liners for exports.

The depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar has made Indian meat products more competitive, the exporters said. Demand for meat is picking up during Ramadan, which is a big relief as exports halved to 65,000 tonnes in March.


Currently, only a few export houses are shipping frozen meat lying in cold storages and ports.

“The lockdown is hurting farmers and workers badly. We are assuring them that exports will pick up, once the lockdown ends. We are in touch with farmers and middlemen and are exploring various ways to source the cattle from them,” said Hind Agro MD Sirajuddin Qureshi. He said they were providing financial support to the farmers and traders from whom they source cattle.

Qureshi said there was good demand from buyers in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where the market has opened.

A New Delhi-based exporter said the depreciation of the rupee made them competitive against rivals from Brazil and Argentina.

Major meat processing plants in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Punjab are located outside municipal corporation limits or coronavirus red zones, said the spokesperson for the All India Livestock Exporters Association.

“We are hopeful state governments will give a go-ahead to start the units once the lockdown is opened on May 4. All the exporting units are modern and HACCP and ISO-certified,” said the spokesperson.

India currently has over 80 buffalo meat exporting companies approved by Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority and annually exports 10-12 lakh tonne valued at Rs 20,000 crore. Each processing company sources animals from farmers and traders within a 50 km radius of their units. An average size export processing plant processes 1,500 tonne meat daily and requires 2,000 workers.