The minister’s reiteration comes as India engages in bilateral trade dialogues with several major agricultural and dairy-exporting economies, including the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. Goyal underscored that domestic dairy and marine sectors are structurally tied to the livelihoods of tens of millions of smallholder farming families and artisanal fishermen. Opening domestic borders to tariff-free or subsidized foreign milk powders, butter, and cheese would compromise the operational viability of India’s cooperative dairy framework.

Beyond socio-economic considerations, the minister emphasized that religious and cultural dietary sensitivities serve as a key non-tariff barrier for foreign dairy. In several western dairying nations, calf-derived animal rennet remains standard in industrial cheese production, and ruminant feed formulations frequently incorporate animal-derived blood or bone meal supplements. For India’s predominantly vegetarian population, such practices are considered unacceptable. Goyal stressed that strict sanitary and phytosanitary certification protocols—mandated by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to ensure all imported milk and bovine ingredients originate exclusively from animals fed a 100% vegetarian diet—will continue to be enforced without exception.

Goyal explained that India’s international trade strategy maintains a distinction between defensive agricultural safeguards and aggressive export promotion. While insulating sensitive domestic chapters, India is actively negotiating preferential, lower-tariff market access for its competitive manufacturing and export sectors—such as textiles, apparel, pharmaceuticals, processed horticulture, and gems and jewelry—to gain parity against regional competitors including Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and the Philippines.