Indian Government Officially Lifts Restriction on US Pork Importations

July 16, 2022 Robbie Kathie 0 Comments

India’s bacon lovers lauded the government for its decision to lift trade restrictions in the importation of US quality pork and processed meat like bacon. While pork was generally thought of as a taboo food ingredient, the prohibition against pork meat was actually imposed only on Indians of the Islamic faith. Actually, only 14.6 percent of the country’s 1.4 billion people are Muslims, which implies that more or less, 80% of the Indian population could become future bacon lovers.

The misconception that pork is actually a forbidden food in India actually stemmed from the historic 16th century rule imposed by the Muslim Mughal Empire. However, the ban did not hold in other succeeding Hindustani empires, especially in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Goa ans in Northeast India.

Reason Behind India’s Policy Shift Toward US Pork Importation

As a result of the Trump administration’s trade rift with China, US farmers lost a significant portion of its pork export deals. In retaliation to Trump’s increased import tariffs on Chinese products, the Chinese government imposed a ban on the importation of US pork. To help US farmers recover from the financial impact of the lost Chinese agricultural export deals, and to reduce America’s reliance on Chinese products, the new Biden administration focused its efforts on strengthening its trading relationship with India.

Through a so-called strategic partnership deal with two other countries, Japan and Australia, the new Biden administration found fresh key markets for the agricultural and livestock produce of US farmers. India being the most significant as it has now surpassed China in having the largest population in the world.

India’s Robust Health Care System and Reliable Support for Affordable Medicines

Apparently,the reason why India is able to maintain its status as being one of the most populous countries, is mainly due to the country’s robust healthcare system. To date, India is on record as having the most number of private healthcare facilities, when compared to the rest of the world. Those are in addition to numerous tax-funded public hospitals that are basically free for all Indian citizens, except for medical services that require co-payments.

Actually, the country’s universal health care model follows a multi-payer system, which denotes a combination of public funds and insurance reimbursements. As a matter of fact, in 2018, the national government launched a publicly funded health insurance program called Ayushman Bharat to help cover the medical expenses of 50% of wokers employed by the country’s unorganized sector.

India’s mandatory support in the use of low cost generic medicines also helped the country’s population meet medical needs. Manufacturers of generic drugs cannot offer them at competitively high prices because a private pharma company intervenes in the sale and distribution of generic drugs.

Through a system called PCD Phatma Franchise, a private company manages the contract of an investor looking to sell generic medicines in his or her region. Managing includes securing a right to monopolize the sale of certain generic brands of medicine without need to compete with other sellers of generic drugs. That way, they are able to sell the generic medicines at its lowest possible costs since they do not need to promote or advertise the sale of generic medicines.