Inside India’s bullish beef market

Alas for the sacred cow: Beef exports from India are expected to surge 30 per cent this year, giving this country a quarter of the world market.

This is a good-news story in a lurching economy. Livestock industries, from eggs to pigs to butter, are expanding rapidly, and it is growth that directly engages the poorest people in the country.

Three-quarters of India’s livestock is produced by small-scale farmers, the majority of them women, and by landless people who raise animals at home.