From 1945, Zebu cattle living on the Indian sub-content were exhaustively identified, enumerated and evaluated by officials working for the newly created Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations (UN). These indigenous, humped-backed cattle (Bos Indicus) provided crucial sources of draught power, food, and income to the area's human inhabitants. Surveying them was a lengthy and painstaking process that took seven years to complete. It was disrupted by political events such as the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan, and the end of British rule in 1947, which impacted on the provision of agricultural services and the presence of technical experts able to attend to the Zebu. It was made more difficult by the Zebu themselves. Numbering over 100 million in India alone (which held nearly half of the world's population), their living conditions, locations, and roles within agrarian systems varied greatly, as did their physical state. Investigators identified at least twenty-eight distinct breeds, whose diverse sizes, shapes and productive capacities reflected their adaptation to particular climates and environments. Many were burdened by chronic infections, parasites, and malnutrition, which undermined their health and limited their abilities to fulfil their human-designated roles. 1 The Zebu attracted attention at this time due to the findings of the FAO's first World Food Survey. Reporting in 1946, it anticipated a growing food crisis across much of the world: production was below prewar levels, famine had just devastated Bengal, and millions of people were unable to meet their basic calorie requirements. With the world's population predicted to increase exponentially, the situation would only deteriorate. 2 The Zebu survey formed one facet of the FAO's response. It sought to identify those cattle with the greatest potential to develop more productive bodies, and to enrol them in a campaign to combat human hunger. This campaign extended beyond India to Latin America, Africa, and much of Asia, and enlisted not only cattle but also buffalo, chickens, pigs and others. However, the recognized importance of milk for child growth and development, and the vitamin, mineral and protein deficiencies that it helped to address, meant that cattle played a central role. This role was not entirely new. The twin challenges of improving human nutrition through increased milk consumption, and developing agriculture through improvements in livestock health and production, had preoccupied nations, colonies and the League of Nations during the inter-war years, culminating in calls to 'marry food and agriculture.' 3 However, it was only after the war, under the aegis of the FAO and the World Health Organisation (WHO), that these two agendas became truly integrated. In framing healthy, productive cattle as essential to the production of healthy, wellnourished humans, these organisations encouraged experts in human and veterinary medicine to transcend the institutional and disciplinary boundaries that had grown ...
