Cheaper wheels mean less horsepower

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, 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.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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