By Swati Deb

New Delhi, April 27, 2020: The lockdown and coronavirus crises have brought in some socio-individualistic transition as well in northeastern India.

“There is now a massive gap between demand and supply of meat, as local meats have failed to meet the demand of the people. But the good news is that a meat consuming state is slowly learning to live without meat,” says a report in ‘Nagaland Page’, a morning tabloid published from Dimapur, Nagaland’s commercial hub.

Nagas are known as foody and meat lovers – especially pork – but the strict enforcement of lockdown has resulted in acute shortage of meat. As a result, people are venturing out to the jungles for bush meat and more and more people and adopting to vegetarian food habits.

Official estimates say each person in the state on average consumes around 51 kg of pork every year and Nagaland also spends 7.54 billion rupees annually to import pork.

Reports also said that of 10.29 million pigs in the country, 3.9 million is from the Northeast and 0.5 million from Nagaland.

Pork is a stable food in Nagaland.

Traditional Naga foods are healthy and appetizing, but growing dependence on meat and liking for junk foods along with absence or shortfall in consumption of boiled vegetables from the plates have lately raised health concerns.

In Assam too, supply of pork has been affected after a flu scare. There is no commercial sale of pork but people who raise pigs at home are selling it.

“In Guwahati too some people are selling pork through personal contacts but not available in the market. I could have pork the other day…for dinner in Guwahati,” says a local resident Ratnadeep Gupta however adding a kilo of same would cost 400 rupees and above.

This was prior to April 25 as on that day – Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal ordered banning of the supply and distribution of pork meat until further orders.

More than 1,300 pigs have died across the districts of Sivasagar, Jorhat, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji and Nagaon.

Samples of affected pigs have been sent to the National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD), Bhopal for the detection of Swine Flu, offcials said.

In Tripura, price rise due to coronavirus has affected mutton market as the consumption of goat meat is maximum in the state especially among Bengali population and local native Tripure tribesmen and women.

In fact, by April 15, on the occasion of Bihu and Bengali New Year’s Day, the price of mutton in Tripura had shot up to 1200 rupees a kg almost three times jump.

However, there has been no report of shortage of pork and other meat in Mizoram.

In Meghalaya too, meat items are available in the market. In the state capital of Shillong, mutton price has shot up to 700 rupees but pork is available at around 350 rupees a kg.

But in general in northeastern states, public have shared various grievances on social media and otherwise as there have been increase in prices of essentials as there is no proper pricing order in most of the cases.

Meanwhile, Nagaland government has set an ambitious target to narrow down the import of pigs to zero by the year 2025.