ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. |
This site built and maintained by: GREANVILLE ASSOCIATESand CRESCENT COMMUNICATIONS •Rev. 12.1.05 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2006
 |
 |
ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
|
MONTH: January/February 2008
Cheaper wheels mean less horsepower
NEW DELHI, CAIRO -- The future of more than 50 million working donkeys worldwide and millions of horses and bullocks may be affected by explosive growth in motor vehicle acquisition.
Indian car acquisition, already growing at 20% per year, is expected to accelerate with the January 2008 introduction of a car priced at just $2,500, made by Tata Motors Ltd., the leading car and truck maker in India. Ford just two days earlier announced plans to invest $875 million in expanding small car production capacity in India.
Motor vehicle acquisition in China is increasing almost as fast, and the boom is spilling over to other parts of Asia. The environmental and socio-economic effects of the spread of motorized transport have received much attention from governments, academia, and mass media, but the implications for animal welfare have been mostly overlooked.
First-time Asian car buyers are believed to be typically city residents, stepping up from scooters and motorcycles. But the $500 scooters and $1,500 motorcycles that the inexpensive new cars replace will become half-priced used vehicles, competing for buyers with new lines of Indian and Chinese-made 110-cc. motorcycles sold for as little as $450.
In that price range, a motorcycle costs about the same in most of the developing world as a pair of donkeys.
When motorization becomes cost-competitive with animal power, working animal populations tend to crash, as occurred most recently in eastern Europe after the fall of Communism. Coinciding with fast-rising car acquisition, former Iron Curtain nations have exported hundreds of thousands of horses and donkeys to slaughter, mostly in Italy.
High gasoline prices have in the past encouraged the less affluent people of developing nations to continue to use animal power, even after the cost of buying motor vehicles became within reach, but the dynamics of the marketplace have recently changed. Global gasoline prices continue to rise, yet increasing diversions of materials formerly used for feed and fodder into ethanol manufacture have sent the cost of feeding working animals and livestock soaring too.
Currently, in most developing nations, the cost per mile traveled for a donkey and a motorcycle are approximately equal. The nations most likely to see steep drops in donkey use include China, with about 11 million donkeys; India, with about two million donkeys; and Egypt, also with about two million donkeys, plus subsidized gasoline prices that are among the lowest in the world.
All three nations have had slightly rising donkey populations in recent years, but the increases have lagged behind human population growth.
Egypt, with the highest rate of donkey use, had 23 people per donkey in 1973; 41 people per donkey in 2000; and has 44 people per donkey now. Total donkey use relative to human population has thus already been dropping at about 0.5% per year.
Among other incentives offered to encourage motorization, India, China, and Egypt have all passed the U.S. in percentage of paved road miles, at 59% for the U.S., 63% in India, 78% in Egypt, and 83% in China.
Economists in India, China, and Egypt have projected for several years that the fastest way to make more water available to livestock production, rapidly growing in all three nations, is to decrease the numbers of working animals.