April 17, 2020

 

Indian farmers give unusual diet to cattle

 

 

In Satara district in western India, farmers are putting their cattle on an unusual diet by feeding iceberg lettuce to buffalo, while others feed strawberries to cows.

 

Farmers can either feed their crops to animals or let them spoil. And other farmers are doing just that—dumping truck loads of fresh grapes to rot on compost heaps.

 

The farmers cannot get their produce to consumers because of lockdowns that aim to stop the spread of the new coronavirus. In India, as in many parts of the world, restrictions on population movement are wreaking havoc on farming and food supply chains and raising concern of more widespread shortages and price spikes to come.

 

Across the globe, millions of labourers cannot get to the fields for harvesting and planting. There are too few truckers to keep goods moving. Air freight capacity for fresh produce has plummeted as planes are grounded. There is a shortage of food containers for shipping because of a drop in voyages from China.

 

In Florida, a lack of Mexican migrant labourers means watermelon and blueberry growers face the prospect of rotting crops. Similar shortages of workers in Europe mean vegetable farms are missing the window to plant.

 

Such sprawling food production and distribution shocks illustrate the pandemic's seemingly boundless capacity to suffocate economies worldwide and upend even the most essential business and consumer markets. There has been limited disruption so far to supplies of staple grains such as rice and wheat, although problems with planting and logistics are mounting.

 

Indian farmer Anil Salunkhe is feeding his strawberries to cows because the local tourists that usually eat them are gone, as are the fruit vendors that once worked the streets of the nearby metropolis of Mumbai.

 

"Nobody was willing to buy strawberries due to the lockdown," Salunkhe told Reuters as he fed strawberries to a cow in Darewadi village, in Satara district.

 

He cannot even give his strawberries away: With stay-home orders in place, few villagers ventured out from their homes when he offered them the berries for free, he said.

 

In nearby Bhuinj village, Prabhakar Bhosale feeds lettuce to buffalo and lets villagers take more for their own cattle. The hotels and restaurants that normally buy lettuce are closed.

 

The emerging supply-chain disruptions are much different than the food crises of 2007-2008 and 2010-2012, when droughts in grain-producing nations caused shortages that led to higher prices, unrest and riots in several countries. Those price spikes were driven in part by state hoarding of rice and other staples.

 

Now, staple grain supplies are relatively plentiful and global prices have been low for years as farmers in the US, Brazil and in the Black Sea region have planted more and improved yields.