India's buffalo meat exports in April drop 11.4 percent

A box with vacuum-sealed beef meat is pictured at the Biernacki Meat Plant slaughterhouse in Golina near Jarocin, western Poland July 17, 2013. The abattoir in this small town in western Poland has a special dormitory to house the more than 30 Jewish men designated by Israel's chief rabbi to oversee the production of kosher beef there. Poland exports 90 percent of its beef, a third of which was kosher or halal worth some 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion). But this booming industry has ground to a halt because, after a campaign by animal rights activists who say the method of slaughter is cruel, Poland's constitutional court banned the practice and this month its parliament rejected an amendment that would have allowed the slaughter to resume. Picture taken July 17, 2013. Photo: REUTERS.

India's buffalo meat exports in April dropped 11.4 percent from a year earlier to 86,119 tonnes, a government body said on Tuesday, as a strike by abattoirs and an appreciating rupee hit shipments.

"Abattoirs' strike in March reduced supplies. Many slaughter houses failed to operate at full capacity in April," said a Mumbai-based exporter, who declined to be named.

India is the world's biggest exporter of buffalo meat. Abattoirs and meat sellers in Uttar Pradesh, the country's top buffalo meat exporting state, went on strike in March after a crackdown on unlicensed abattoirs.

In the latest setback to the Muslim-dominated meat industry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government decreed animal markets will only be able to trade cattle for agricultural purposes such as ploughing and dairy production.

The rupee has risen more than 5 percent so far in 2017, eroding the returns of exporters.

India's basmati rice exports in April rose 15.6 percent from a year ago to 389,406 tonnes, while non-basmati rice exports fell 18.5 percent to 475,050 tonnes, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority said in a statement.