Dairy of an Agro phile: How now, holy cow?
The TOI Correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump unveiled a laundry list of his administration’s grievances about “Tariff King” New Delhi’s “trade barriers,” but few gripes were more tone deaf than ones against India’s agriculture and dairy sector, the life blood of rural India that employs nearly 50 per cent of the country’s workforce.
In a 400-page report on foreign trade barriers that Trump waved around while announcing punitive global tariffs, there was a 16-page critique on India’s practices, including “onerous requirements” that New Delhi imposes on dairy imports.
“India requires that dairy products intended for food be derived from animals that have not consumed feeds containing internal organs, blood meal, or tissues of ruminant or porcine origin and that exporting countries certify to these conditions,” the report complained, maintaining that the conditions “lack a discernable (sic) animal health or human health justification.” There was no mention of religious or cultural norms.
The irony is that many American practices in the food and agro sector is being scrapped or reversed by Trump’s own health and human services (HHS) boffin Robert Kennedy as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda, from his beef against beef tallow to banning synthetic food dyes. Although the USDA (US Dept of Agriculture) and not HHS is the primarily agency to regulate animal feed and dairy farming practices, the US dairy industry is bracing for scrutiny of feed additives like antibiotics, synthetic hormones, bloodmeal and bonemeal used in ruminant diets to boost milk production.
Europe continues to restrict US dairy on similar grounds, including the use of recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), a synthetic hormone injected into cows to increase milk production. Yet the tariff tome complains that New Delhi continues to hamper market access for US milk and dairy product exports to India, describing it as “one of the largest dairy markets in the world,” that Washington still intends to break into. Evidently, the farm constituency in MAGAland is important enough electorally to not practice what is preached.
Similar gripes litter the critique, including India’s high tariffs on alcoholic beverages (150 per cent, but since reduced). Irony alert: Both Trump and Kennedy, who once battled addiction, are teetotalers.
