World
Cow Urine Can Sell for More Than Milk in India
India has spent 5.8 billion rupees on cow sheds since 2014
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Carrying a large aluminum bowl, Susheela Kumari bustles around the back ends of two dozen cows in a shelter in northern India, ready for a lifted tail or squat that could signal an impending tinkle from one of her charges.
Distilled urine from female cattle currently fetches at least as much as milk in India, and Kumari’s boss doesn’t want to waste a drop. As it is, she and two other attendants who work around the clock in a cow shed in Bulandshahar, 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of New Delhi, collect barely half the 15-to-20 liters of fluid the animals pass daily.