Arunachal: Himalayan Yaks gets tag from Food Safety and Standards Authority

Himalayan Yaks

Itanagar: Himalayan Yaks has received Food Animal Tag from Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The FSSAI tagging, which was adopted a few days ago following the proposal of the Dirang (Arunachal Pradesh)-based National Research Center on Yak (NRC-Y), is expected to prevent the decline in population of high-altitude cattle. Incorporating it as part of the traditional dairy and meat industry.
In general, highly nutritious yak milk and meat are not part of the traditional dairy and meat industries, and their sales are limited to local consumers.

Mihir Sarkar, director of NRC-Y, said the FSSAI tagging proposal was submitted to the central authority last year.
“We made a detailed presentation to the Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying on the benefits of yak milk and meat and the importance of animal husbandry.

“FSSAI issued this tagging following the recommendation of Animal Husbandry and Dairy Department,” Sarkar said.
The domestic yak is found throughout the Himalayan region—Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, North Bengal, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir—while the wild yak is found in Tibet.

Sarkar said that yak herders play a multifaceted social, economic and cultural role for the nomads who rear it extensively to sustain their food aid and livelihood.
According to NRC-Y, the population of yaks in the country is decreasing at an alarming rate.

As of the 2019 census, India had about 58,000 yaks, a decrease of about 25 percent from the last cattle census conducted in 2012.

Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir have the largest population of about 26,000 Yaks, followed by about 24,000 in Arunachal Pradesh, mostly in Tawang and West Kaming districts, 5,000 in Sikkim, 2,000 in Himachal Pradesh and about 1,000 in North Bengal and Uttarakhand.