Sri Lanka cattle slaughter ban to help dairy industry

Sri Lanka’s government announced that it will ban cattle slaughter,

Cabinet ministers decided at a meeting to immediately amend the Animal Act, the Cattle Slaughter Ordinance and other laws and regulations passed by local authorities regarding cattle slaughter, the government’s information department said.

It said the Cabinet believed that an increase in cattle slaughter was making it hard for traditional farmers to acquire cows for dairy farming.

But an analyst, quoted by The Associated Press, said the decision was politically motivated to please the Buddhist majority and would harm dairy farmers.

Independent political analyst Kusal Perera called the decision “totally counter-productive” because “no milk industry can sustain itself without a beef industry.”