Visakhapatnam: The next time when you wear suits of brands made in Spain, Italy or the US, just look at the buttons. These buttons are made out of buffalo horns sent from India, particularly Andhra Pradesh. Annually around 200 tonnes of semi processed buffalo and ox horn buttons are exported from Andhra Pradesh to South Korea, Italy, Germany, France, China (including Hong Kong) and the US. Andhra Pradesh is next to Uttar Pradesh in the export of buffalo meat and its horns.

While semi-processed horn buttons, called blanks, are exported to some countries, Italy sources full horns from India. The buttons are drilled, polished and finished to be sold to garment manufacturers especially to those who make custom-made, premium and high quality suits. The buttons used normally in regular garments are made of plastic or polyester. Besides, buffalo horns are exported to other countries, especially China, where they are used to make crockery for durability.



“Livestock horns, especially of those of water buffaloes have high demand in other countries. There are around eight colours of these horns that are in high demand in Europe, East Asia and the US where they are used in making buttons for high quality, premium international brand suits of the likes of Hugo Boss, Zara. The blanks are used to give finesse, colour and quality. In some cases we collect these horns from traders and some butchers directly bring them to us,” said Swetha Exports chairman and managing director Dr B. Srinivasa Rao, who exports horns from Vizag.

Interestingly buffalo horns are more in demand than those of ox and the value of the annual exports from AP is pegged close to Rs 75 crore. “Sometimes these horns are so much in demand that we need to source from other countries like Bangladesh and semi process them in AP and then export from here. Ox horns have limited colours so their demand is less in the international market,” another horn exporter.