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Mahesh

14/11/24 10:03 AM IST

India’s tea, sugar exports raise sustainability concerns at home

In News
  • India is one of 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 increase in less than two decades.
Tea
  • India is the world’s fourth-largest tea exporter and second largest producer and makes up 10% of global exports.
  • The latter totalled 188.76 million kg in 2022, with a value of $641.34 million, an increase of 21.47% year on year in volume and 12.43% year on year in value.
  • The total value of Indian tea exports for 2022-2023 was $793.78 million.
  • Domestic consumption constitutes 80% of total production.
  • The top export destinations of Indian tea are the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Iran, the U.S. and the U.K.
  • There is also growing evidence of stresses being imposed on production systems across the tea value chain.
  • Three major challenges in the tea industry are the management of human-wildlife interactions, burgeoning chemical use, and labour concerns.
  • An estimated 70% of tea plantations are situated at the periphery of forests and host the migratory routes elephants need to move around, resulting in frequent interactions with humans and human property and damage.
  • Synthetic pesticides constitute up to 85% of total pesticide use in tea plantations.
  • This degree of reliance on such pesticides increases the chemical residue in the final product.
  • Researchers have already documented an increase in the incidence of DDT, Endosulfan 35 EC, Dicofol 18.5 EC, and Cypermethrin 10 EC in tea.
  • Exposure to these substances can increase the risk of cancer, diabetes, impaired neurodevelopment in children, and neurotoxicity.
  • Finally, the labour rights and working conditions of the tea estates cannot be undermined.
  • More than half of tea plantation workers are women and they are often underpaid.
  • The working conditions are also hazardous and workers often lack protective gear.
  • Despite regulations under the Plantations Labour Act 1951 (amended in 2010 to strengthen worker safety), safety standards are almost never fully enforced.
  • There is a critical need for better management practices in and around tea estates in India, stricter monitoring of the maximum residue limits for pesticides, and better enforcement of existing labour regulations.
Sugar
  • India is the world’s second-largest sugar producer, with 34 million metric tonnes of production, about a fifth of the global production.
  • 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 country exported sugar to 121 countries, according to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics.
  • About 50 million farmers depend on sugarcane cultivation in India.
  • An additional half million depend on sugar and allied factories.
  • According to NITI Aayog, the industry has an annual turnover of Rs 1 lakh crore.
  • But for the exports’ economic value and the industry’s significant rural employment, it also has considerable adverse environmental effects — but in particular water resource management.
  • Sugarcane is well-known for requiring a lot of water to cultivate.
  • On average, 1 kg of sugar requires between 1,500 and 2,000 kg of water.
  • Sugarcane and paddy occupy around 25% of the gross cropped area in India and consume 60% of the country’s total irrigation water, reducing the availability for other crops and also stressing groundwater resources.
  • In the last six or seven years, the area under sugarcane cultivation has almost doubled in Karnataka and Maharashtra.
  • Natural ecosystems like grasslands and savannahs in these states have also been converted to plant sugarcane.
  • Along with the ensuing biodiversity loss, this change has increased the pressure on water resources and increased the need for sustainable water use and alternate cropping patterns.
  • In fact, Implementing drip irrigation in these states could lower water consumption by 40-50%.
Millets
  • Even as the sustainability challenges of these commodities persist, there are some others that promote long-term ecological and socio-economic sustainability, and their successes could serve as templates to address the problems plaguing tea and sugar.
  • One prime example is millets, a sustainable option with which to increase domestic consumption as well as exports.
  • Millets are resilient to harsh conditions and don’t require more inputs to weather resource constraints.
  • They preserve soil health and ensure nutritional security.
  • The growing importance of millet export is evident in the export statistics. India reached a major milestone in 2021-2022 when it exported millets valued at $62.95 million, up from $26.97 million in 2020-2021, almost a 2.5-fold increase in a single year.
  • In FY 2022-2023, the country shipped 169,049.11 metric tonnes of millets and millet-related products worth $75.45 million.
  • This rising demand highlights their potential as a sustainable agricultural commodity contributing to economic growth and environmental resilience.
Source- The Hindu

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