yak: Himalayan Yak gets FSSAI tag

The Himalayan Yak has got the food animal tag from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), under the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

The FSSAI tag is following the proposal of the Dirang (Arunachal Pradesh) based National Research Centre on Yak (NRC-Y).

NRC-Y Director Mihir Sarkar said that the proposal for FSSAI tagging was submitted to the Central authority last year.

“We made a detailed presentation about the benefits of Yak milk and meat and the importance of rearing the animal before the Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Ministry.
Yak is found throughout the Himalayan region — Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, North Bengal, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir — while wild Yak is found in Tibet.

According to the 2019 Census, India had some 58,000 Yaks, marking a drop of about 25 per cent from the last livestock Census conducted in 2012.