India’s buffalo meat exports are booming, hitting a record $5.1 billion in 2025-26 and set to cross $6 billion in the current fiscal year. Credit goes to the industry that has built a market in countries from Southeast and West Asia to Africa and, more recently, Uzbekistan, Russia and Georgia. Moreover, unit value realisations have gone up from sub-$3,000 to $4,000-plus per tonne over the last two-three years, amid concerted efforts at raising the product profile of Indian buffalo meat, and not selling it as just a cheaper alternative to regular cattle beef. This has been helped by adherence to internationally recognised quality and hygiene standards and exports being allowed only through government-approved abattoirs and processing plants.

But equally important is how the buffalo meat industry has been complementary to India’s dairy sector. The buffaloes that are culled are mostly animals not giving enough milk or those that happen to be male. For farmers, the fodder, feed, water and labour that go towards maintaining them has a direct as well as an opportunity cost — in terms of the loss of potential output from not allocating the same resources to more productive bovines. By creating a market for unproductive buffaloes, the meat plants have enabled farmers to replace low-yielding/ageing animals with high-milking/fresh stock. Such regular herd turnover is essential for any viable dairy enterprise. The very fact that the buffaloes going to the slaughterhouse aren’t competing for scarce resources with the ones giving milk makes this a more sustainable model. Unlike in Brazil or the US, where cattle are reared separately for milk and beef, here the meat is from “spent” buffaloes that have outlived their usefulness as milkers.

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Consumption of milk, especially high-fat, is growing in India on the back of rising incomes. The support to buffalo milk production from meat exports is, therefore, welcome. But buffalo milk yields are lower compared to that from crossbred cows. Their age at first lactation and inter-calving intervals is also longer. To that extent, buffaloes alone cannot supply India’s increasing milk requirement from a medium-to-long-term perspective. All the more reason why a scientific approach to culling unproductive animals — whether for breeding and reproductive efficiency or redirecting finite resources to higher-yielding stock — is necessary in cattle, too. The political leadership cannot run away from taking that call.