Food & Beverage News: F&B Specials - Devise a Green Prospect: Indian Dairy Industry!

Since inception of human civilization, there has been awareness of the obligatory linkages between human beings and biodiversity as well as environmental resources such as air, water, soil and environmental factors like temperature, energy, light, humidity etc. The growth of environmentally compatible 'Home-grown Technologies', popularly known as 'Indigenous Technologies', might have derived from the environmentally conscious early human beings. These technologies traveled over the ages through the practice of traditional development processes and had certain bearings on evolution ', of the modern 'Science and Technology'.

The usage of such environment friendly technologies gradually lost its significance in the pursuit of ever increasing human endeavours for larger material comforts-cum-speedier development. To keep pace with such accomplishments, the traditional developmental processes radically transformed into productive oriented energy driven developmental processes.

Such development processes since called for higher capital investments and greater knowledge-cum-skills, it grew primarily in the richer nations in the developed world. However, the practices of home-grown technology vis-a-vis traditional development process persisted largely in the developing world. Nonetheless, during the colonial era such age-old practices waned out gradually to the productive oriented energy driven development processes, initially in the colonies and later on to the other parts of the developing world. And such contemporary developmental processes got more popularised with the ever growing challenges of the competitive globalised world.

The unrelenting human aspiration for profit maximisations have further enthused greater exploitation of all global resources. And the development processes promoted to optimise such endeavours arguably overlooked its adverse effects on the global environment. The threats to human race and all other habitants of this planet emanating from the environmentally inhospitable development processes were gradually recognised by the civil societies the world over. According to Dr. Mike Hulme, Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, UK, all aspects of climate change affects individual and social life including health, economics and poverty levels more than physical phenomenon. United Nations and other multilateral institutions and the green movement lobbies too have been rumbling concerns stressing the need for a viable shift in the global development process. But to usher in a radical change on the global development process, the stumbling block has been the diverse sock economic global scenarios.

For instance, the UN Population Division has projected world population of about 10 billion by 2050; at the same period the total population of 'hungry' people is likely to increase from 1 billion to about 3 billion with most of them living in the developing world! According to a study titled 'Redefining Progress 2000', nature provides 5.5 acres of bio-productive space for each person which will reduce to 3 acres, by 2050. In contrast an American uses, at present, 30 acres of bio-productive space to support his or her lifestyle!

If one looks at the much maligned energy scenario, it can be observed that in contrast to 1.2 bn people in the developed world consuming energy at the rate of 7.4 per person or 8.9 tw (trillion \ watts) per annum, merely 1 kw per person or 4.1 tw per annum of energy is being consumed by 4.1 billion residents of the developing world. The wealthiest 20 per cent of world population is consuming 80 per cent of the goods and services produced from the earth's resources and therefore contributing that much more to worsening the environment!

Evidently, in the prevailing dissimilar global situation, pursuing the 'Save the Planet' or 'Green Campaign' has become an uphill task, even though its imperatives are well understood by all the civil societies across the globe. For instance, the recently concluded much-hyped global summit on climate change at Copenhagen, Denmark, after lot of twists and turns, could not charter a mutually acceptable time-bound accord, involving all the participating nations. Nevertheless, the visible gain in the climate summit was voicing together for an equitable access to the atmospheric space, by the developing and emerging nations.

Noticeably, the developed nations had realised, since the commencement of Kyoto Protocol in 1997, the necessity of propagating green technology enterprises and development of carbon credit markets, for their sustenance in the competitive globalised world. Accordingly, they have been promoting several innovative measures in developing and marketing various green technology tools. Besides, attempts are also being made by them to create a suitable international regulatory structure for a climate policy putting in place quantifiable carbon emission targets having identified peaks for each of the global nations. Though the developing countries have been lobbying against such moves, they have gradually felt the necessity to face the emerging challenges of the global climate change.

As stated earlier, most of the developing countries being comparatively lesser energy dependent are presently advantageously positioned in the global eco-foot-print table. Therefore, these countries should take the benefits of its comparative advantages in harvesting the global carbon credit markets. A country like India can certainly play a 'Prima-Dona' role in deriving the best benefits of the global carbon trading because of its lesser energy dependency vis-a-vis lower per capita carbon emission intensities. Moreover, its majority population relies yet, on the low carbon emitting home-grown technologies.

Globally, major contributors to carbon foot-prints have been the Heavy Industries, Service Sector and Urban Societies. As far as carbon foot-prints emission of the global Agro-food Sector is concerned, the developed world is being primarily energy driven and it continues to be comparatively higher contributor than the developing world, which is yet to be fully energy dependent.

The Dairy industry globally though not a major contributor to carbon foot-prints but having realised the importance of the climate change issue, it did come together to address the problem during the World Dairy Summit held in Berlin in September 2009. Accordingly, a declaration was signed by the participating nations identifying the need to pool dairy industry knowledge and resources in order to achieve the necessary changes in technology and practices, to reduce its emission levels in the dairy industry.

The Dairy Sector, in India, has two distinctive supply chains: one globally competitive technology driven and the other homegrown technology dependent. The former growth vicinity confines to the branded value added milk and milk products manufacturing (formal) sector whereas the later represents primarily the unbranded (informal) sector. In the formal dairy sector the environmental impacting key items are principally fuel/power^energies, water, chemicals, solid/liquid wastes, packaging materials, etc; whereas in the informal sector largely the key items are-solid/ liquid wastes, besides methanepollution resulting mainly from the milk production systems. Consequently, the Indian Dairy Sector needs to devise two distinctive green perspective plans, keeping the respective sector's growth trajectories in view.

Accordingly, the formal dairy sector should come out with a time-bound action plan in arming itself with globally available latest green technology tools. Simultaneously, research and developmental efforts should be initiated for indigenization-cum-inno-vation of green technology tools, as it had done, during the Operation Flood period, to transform the import dependent Indian dairy plant and machinery industry to become not only self reliant but turn into an exporter!

The dairying system, in India, is predominated yet by the informal sector. Hence, it calls for a special policy thrust to restructure the sector into micro-enterprises.

Significantly, the informal dairy sector is primarily environmentally compatible home-grown technology reliant and once it acquires the micro-enterprises status, it would be in advantageous position also to derive the benefits of the global carbon credit trading! Such initiatives would enable the Indian dairy sector, as a whole, to adhere the prescribed international sanitary and hygiene standards besides deriving the best benefits of the global carbon trading!

It is not out of place to mention here that major dairying nations like US, EU, Australia have already initiated time-bound action plans to minimize respective carbon foot-prints and the other dairying nations, especially after the World Dairy Summit in 2009, are also following suit. These stepping up efforts would help these nations to uphold their positions in the emerging global dairy scenario!

Although environmental awareness has not yet made any major impact on the consumers' purchasing behaviors, but the way the environmental initiatives are catching up globally, the days are not far away when carbon footprint labeling on food products, including milk and milk products, will be strictly enforced by the global trade bodies like WTO. In this context, it is important to mention, how India and the other developing nations were caught unprepared when phyto-sanitary measures along with various non-tariff barriers became a mandatory precondition for the international food products trading, including milk and milk products!

- The writer is Advisor Daily Food Sector, onorary Chairperson,
Milk Panel, gro-Vision 2020, TIP AC, I GOI & Past President, IDA