India is among the world’s largest agricultural product exporters. The Indian agricultural export is valued at $53.1 billion in 2022-2023, up from $8.7 billion in 2004-2005, a six-fold improve in lower than twenty years. For an economically creating economic system like India, exports play a major position in strengthening the economic system by rising income, overseas alternate, and transactional choices. However the fast surge in exports poses a number of challenges to the sustainability of the manufacturing, processing, and distribution programs of the respective commodities.
On this context, it’s vital to reply two questions relating to the sustainability of an agricultural commodity system.
First, when can an agricultural commodity be thought of actually sustainable? The sustainability of such a commodity isn’t nearly financial sustainability, which is pushed by productiveness. Ecological and social components, aided by good governance, assist construct a sustainable manufacturing system, so the sustainability of an agricultural system will depend on three pillars: ecological components, financial points, and social points, underpinned by strong insurance policies underlying all of them.
Second, ought to sustainability concerns solely apply to manufacturing? No. Because the lifecycle of a commodity extends throughout pre-sowing, on-farm manufacturing, and post-harvest levels, sustainability applies to all of them. Tea and sugar, two distinguished commodities in India with a massive home and export-oriented consumption base, provide good examples as an example the issues herein.
Tea
India is the world’s fourth-largest tea exporter and second largest producer and makes up 10% of worldwide exports. The latter totalled 188.76 million kg in 2022, with a worth of $641.34 million, a rise of 21.47% 12 months on 12 months in quantity and 12.43% 12 months on 12 months in worth. The full worth of Indian tea exports for 2022-2023 was $793.78 million. Home consumption constitutes 80% of whole manufacturing. The highest export locations of Indian tea are the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Iran, the U.S. and the U.Ok.
There’s additionally rising proof of stresses being imposed on manufacturing programs throughout the tea worth chain. Three main challenges within the tea business are the administration of human-wildlife interactions, burgeoning chemical use, and labour considerations. An estimated 70% of tea plantations are located on the periphery of forests and host the migratory routes elephants want to maneuver round, leading to frequent interactions with people and human property and harm.
Likewise, artificial pesticides represent up to 85% of whole pesticide use in tea plantations. This diploma of reliance on such pesticides will increase the chemical residue within the last product. Researchers have already documented an increase within the incidence of DDT, Endosulfan 35 EC, Dicofol 18.5 EC, and Cypermethrin 10 EC in tea. Publicity to those substances can increase the risk of most cancers, diabetes, impaired neurodevelopment in kids, and neurotoxicity.
Lastly, the labour rights and dealing circumstances of the tea estates can’t be undermined. More than half of tea plantation employees are girls and they’re typically underpaid. The working circumstances are additionally hazardous and employees typically lack protecting gear. Regardless of laws beneath the Plantations Labour Act 1951 (amended in 2010 to strengthen employee security), security requirements are virtually by no means totally enforced. There’s a essential want for higher administration practices in and round tea estates in India, stricter monitoring of the utmost residue limits for pesticides, and higher enforcement of present labour laws.
Sugar
India is the world’s second-largest sugar producer, with 34 million metric tonnes of manufacturing, a couple of fifth of the worldwide manufacturing. India’s sugar exports grew by 291% from $1,177 million in FY 2013-2014 to $4,600 million in FY 2021-22 and 64.90% in 2021-2022. The nation exported sugar to 121 international locations, in response to the Directorate Normal of Industrial Intelligence and Statistics. About 50 million farmers rely on sugarcane cultivation in India. A further half million rely on sugar and allied factories. In keeping with NITI Aayog, the business has an annual turnover of Rs 1 lakh crore.
However for the exports’ financial worth and the business’s vital rural employment, it additionally has appreciable adversarial environmental results — however specifically water useful resource administration.
Sugarcane is well-known for requiring a number of water to domesticate. On common, 1 kg of sugar requires between 1,500 and 2,000 kg of water. Sugarcane and paddy occupy around 25% of the gross cropped space in India and eat 60% of the nation’s whole irrigation water, decreasing the provision for different crops and likewise stressing groundwater assets. Within the final six or seven years, the world beneath sugarcane cultivation has virtually doubled in Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Pure ecosystems like grasslands and savannahs in these states have additionally been transformed to plant sugarcane. Together with the following biodiversity loss, this variation has elevated the strain on water assets and elevated the necessity for sustainable water use and alternate cropping patterns. The truth is, Implementing drip irrigation in these states could lower water consumption by 40-50%.
The social dynamics of sugar industries narrate one other story. Media reviews have unearthed poor working circumstances, together with lengthy working hours. Rising temperatures in peninsular India acts as a menace multiplier, rising the dangers to employees’ bodily and psychological well-being. Staff trapped in vicious debt cycles incur much more stress. Strengthening laws and inspiring structured and accountable manufacturing practices are vital to scale back these results and promote sustainability.
Millets
Even because the sustainability challenges of those commodities persist, there are some others that promote long-term ecological and socio-economic sustainability, and their successes may function templates to handle the issues plaguing tea and sugar.
One prime instance is millets, a sustainable possibility with which to extend home consumption in addition to exports. Millets are resilient to harsh circumstances and don’t require extra inputs to climate useful resource constraints. They protect soil well being and guarantee dietary safety.
The rising significance of millet export is clear within the export statistics. India reached a significant milestone in 2021-2022 when it exported millets valued at $62.95 million, up from $26.97 million in 2020-2021, virtually a 2.5-fold improve in a single 12 months. In FY 2022-2023, the nation shipped 169,049.11 metric tonnes of millets and millet-related merchandise price $75.45 million. This rising demand highlights their potential as a sustainable agricultural commodity contributing to financial progress and environmental resilience.
Agricultural commodity manufacturing in India lives in a singular context: a massive home consumption base and now a quickly rising export base. These dynamics might profit producers and customers however they may additionally yield a paradox: whereby rising dependencies between totally different actors within the provide chain compromise ecological and social sustainability considerations. There are profitable tales of accelerating manufacturing and commerce volumes however considerations additionally proceed relating to the trickling down of a few of these financial advantages to producers and farm labourers, and relating to the vitality of India’s pure assets.
There must be extra give attention to addressing environmental points and safeguarding the well being and security of each employees and customers to develop an inclusive agrarian economic system that advantages each native communities and international markets.
Dasari Giridhar is a analysis affiliate and Manan Bhan is a Fellow in Residence — each on the Ashoka Belief for Analysis in Ecology and the Atmosphere (ATREE), Bengaluru.
Printed – November 14, 2024 05:30 am IST
