India is basically an agricultural country with predominantly an agricultural base, which accounts for more than thirty percent of its national income.
 Agriculture in India is the backbone of its economy. As in the case of human body, where all limbs and other bones are inter-linked and depend on a sturdy backbone for strength, various branches of the economy are dependent on Agriculture in India.
The Industrial sector, for instance, to a large extent, is dependent on agriculture for their raw materials, besides seventy percent of India’s population resides in villages, being directly or indirectly involved with agriculture.
Grazing by sheep cause more damage to the soil than grazing done by cows. Arravali Valley around Delhi, lies barren because of excessive grazing done by sheep. As a result, the Government had to sanction Rupees Two Thousand Crores just to make the valley green again and retain and reclaim its soil.
The country’s heavy dependence on agriculture on the one hand and on the other, acres of land being rendered unproductive by over-grazing in order to support cattle, for slaughtering and subsequent generation of animal food, is an irony
The world would not face a shortage of foodstuff, if all humans become vegetarians.
Non-Vegetarians have in their menu, meat of herbivorous animals. Infact, to produce meat for one individual, an animal is required to consume vegetarian food diet of thirteen individuals, over the years of its existence.
So we see that being a non-vegetarian rather accentuates and creates indirectly, a shortage of foodstuff and depletes our agricultural wealth.
If the US reduces their intake of meat by even ten percent, the number of people, who could be fed using the land, water and energy thus freed from growing feed for livestock, would work out to a staggering ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS ! - Says John Robbins. Sixty - four percent of US cropland is used for producing feed for livestock, whereas only two percent of land is used for producing foods and vegetables.
A startling fact to be observed when we go for an analysis is, "that The US livestock consumes - Seventy percent of the grain, Ninety percent of the soya and Eighty percent of the corn grown over there.”
All this is at the time, when a child dies of malnutrition and starvation every 2.3 seconds or 38,000 every single day.
Every year fifty-two million acres of the earth’s land is rendered unproductive by desertification, whereas twenty-nine percent of the earth’s land is in the process of desertification.
When we consider that the grain harvest consumed by livestock throughout the decade of the eighties was - fifty percent of the total produce, the above appalling revelation is understandable.
Over-grazing is not the only malady afficting Indian agriculture. The entailing problem of soil erosion is another reason for the depletion and destruction of agricultural land. Soil erosion is a direct outcome of overgrazing and brings the agricultural activities to an halt, damaging and endangering, in the process, the environmental and ecological balance.
The topsoil, once damaged or eroded, takes years to recoup or come together and as also because the insects and other creatures, which were so far intact in the soil are eroded, causes a grave and cumulative damage to the soil.
Misuse of water is another factor plaguing Indian Agriculture. A kilo of meat requires 10,000 litres of water for its production, preparation of one Lac chicken requires 1,37,50,000 gallons of water and for the production of a meagre quantity of one pound of beef 5,214 gallons of water is required. No wonder, if we face a scarcity of precious water in the coming next ten years !
As mentioned earlier, nearly one third of the national income of India accrues from agriculture and out of that half of it is dependent on cattle resources.
In our country as the agricultural holdings are small in size i.e. eighty percent of our farmers own less than four acre of land, the introduction of mechanisation will only produce diminishing returns in farms besides creating the other complications.
If at all, India goes for mechanisation in its agriculture sector and uses tractors instead of animals, we would be requiring 73 lac tractors, which will consume 237 lac tons of diesel per year, shooting up our import bill by 21,000 crores, at the present rate.
On the other hand, the strength of draught animals in India totals around a mammoth 730 lacs. Besides, the use of the heavy tractors can damage the soil and thereby reduce the yield of crop by eighty percent.
So we can, with authority stress the invincibility of cattle for the progress and prosperity of the agricultural sector in India and thus, the need to be vegetarian.