Monthly Archives: August 2026

There’s a lot of excitement around India’s buffalo exports touching USD 5 billion. 

And though it may seem like a huge triumph, nobody mentions the environmental cost of this “achievement.” Recent research by reputable institutions like the University of Oxford are categorical: the deleterious impacts of animal agriculture are principal drivers of climate change and environmental breakdown. Simply stated, rearing animals is recognised as the leading cause of droughts, floods, water scarcity, deforestation, habitat and biodiversity loss, desertification, eutrophication, ocean dead zones…and the list goes on.

This “achievement” thus raises a host of questions, especially – but not only – at a time when here at home we are already trying to navigate the effects of climate and environmental breakdown, and taking into account the following facts:

• India is home to the world’s largest cattle population, while we occupy 2.4% of the global landmass; 
• India is the world’s most populated country and has one-fourth of the global hungry population; 
• Nearly 30% of our land is degraded; 
• We lose thousands of acres of forests every year for agricultural expansion.

Dairy production carries its own set of uncomfortable facts.

• According to DairyNews7x7, the water footprint of milk production in 2022 in India was more than half that of total water required for irrigation in 2025. 
• India is already ranked amongst the most water-scarce countries in the world, says the NDDB report. 
• This same report states that we are the world’s highest extractors of groundwater, 89% of which is used for agricultural irrigation (8% is attributed to municipalities, 2% to industries, and 1% to others). 
• This same report states that India’s dairy water footprint (WF) is 1078 litres of water for 1 litre of milk against the global average of 1020 litres of water per litre of milk. 
• This same report states that about 70% of total agricultural water use is for crop production and 30% is for livestock.
• According to this same report, on average a healthy adult lactating buffalo requires at least 75 to 80 litres of clean drinking water daily, and in the summers it can go beyond 100 litres plus a bath twice a day to manage heat. 

Further still, India tops the chart in global methane and nitrous oxide emissions – greenhouse gasses respectively 80 times and 285 times more potent than CO2 in warming the planet – thanks to our massive cattle population. Buffaloes produce the highest methane per litre of milk. 

This “achievement” is even more questionable when we ask ourselves how it is possible that we have enough feed for 300 million plus cattle but not enough for the 520 million people in India who either go hungry daily or who do not have access to a healthy diet… 

At the end of the day, all the applause, pats on the back and PR stunts crumble when faced with worsening environmental deterioration and climate chaos. India urgently needs agricultural policy that ensures nutritional health, environmental sustainability, and food sovereignty. Animal agriculture – no matter what you call it and no matter the form it takes –  runs contrary to all of those goals. This new benchmark for buffalo exports is not an achievement, but instead a total fiasco where the environment, the climate and the general population are the big losers.

Please add your thoughts to the comments.

On July 8th, incessant rains in Pune led to the collapse of the garbage mound at the Moshi Waste Depot in PCMC. Nine people working at the Depot were killed, buried alive under a noxious waste dump. After examining the chronology of events, it is clear that this tragedy was inevitable. The site was used to deposit waste well beyond its limits (60 meters in height, far exceeding the permissible limit of 20 meters) despite receiving notices from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board.

While public authorities must take the necessary actions to solve the problem of an overburdened system of waste disposal, we citizens are the ones who can put an end to the problem permanently. To put it bluntly, ever since the liberalization of Indian markets in the early 1990s, population growth and consumerist lifestyles have put enormous, expanding and unbridled pressure on garbage sites across the city. All attempts to expand garbage sites have received fierce resistance from residents living nearby. Who can blame them?

Until the liberalization of our markets, Indians were more or less content with limited access to consumer products. But once the Western giants in the food industry and personal products were let in (along with the expansion of the software & automobile industries) everything changed…for the worse. A great number of Indians – spoiled by their double incomes – were lured into shopping malls and popular food chains much too frequently, leading to the sudden generation of packaging-related waste. During COVID, most of us got hooked on online shopping and excessive plastic use in the name of hygiene.

The result has been an incessant propagation of non-biodegradable waste which has absolutely no place to go. Over the decades, we have witnessed waste piling up around us so quickly and ubiquitously that many of us don’t even pay attention to it any longer, as if this outrageous accumulation of waste was the new normal. Methane emissions from the waste dumps are contributing to the warming of the planet. The health quotient of the city has dipped due to air-borne and water-borne diseases. 

We seem to be resigned to this horrible reality when, in fact, we can easily and actively participate to not only reduce but reverse this scenario. 

As a solutions-based organisation, our emphasis is on providing alternatives so that citizens are empowered to make informed choices that have a positive impact on our lifestyle, our health and the health of our planet. We encourage citizens to set a precedent for future generations by taking responsibility for waste generated as individuals and communities, striving to reduce waste as much as possible, to manage unavoidable waste and to recycle and repurpose products that are still usable. 

Simple lifestyle changes & dedicated services (for example, the city of Pune is equipped with ample waste reduction and waste management options like Mission City Chakra, Zer0ware, Scrapcash, Do Good…) help us reduce our waste by providing practical solutions to avoid the use of single-use plastics, thermocol and other harmful products and by managing unavoidable waste that can be repurposed or disposed of responsibly rather than dumping it and adding toxins to our land, water sources and air. 

Reflecting on our needs is another powerful and effective way to reduce our waste. Instead of buying a product right away, if we allow ourselves to pause for a few days to assess its necessity, we’d be able to make judicious decisions for ourselves and the planet. Indeed, pausing and reflecting before purchasing is one of most skillful ways to break the habitual cycle of overconsumption and the waste that goes along with it. 

A low waste society is possible provided we recognise our individual responsibility  and how that plays into a collective shift of consciousness where tragedies like the one at the Moshi Waste Depot are relegated to a distant past.