It is not milk or meat production per sey, it is the amount of
livestock. From the article:

"Planet Earth is suffereing. In large measure, the escalating loss of
species, destruction of ancient rainforests to create pasture lands for
live stock, loss of topsoils and the consequent increase of water
impurities and air pollution have all been traced to the single fact of
meat in the human diet. No decision that we can make as individuals or
as a race can have such a dramatic effect on the improvement of our
planetary ecology as the decision not to eat mea"

Looking at s. asia in this regard:

India has one of the largest livestock population in the world. Fifty
percent of the buffaloes and twenty percent of the cattle in the world
are found in India, most of which are milch cows and milch buffaloes."