Asia has witnessed remarkable growth in its production and consumption of milk and dairy products in recent years and this trend is almost certain to continue.
Indeed, the Asia-Pacific region has overtaken Europe as the world’s largest milk producer, with India alone producing one in every five glasses of milk.
This increased consumption of dairy products in Asia and the Pacific is playing a vital role in improving child nutrition and boosting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers across the region — as the latter are the source of production for the vast amount of milk and dairy products that we consume.
By the end of 2015, the Asia-Pacific region as a whole had achieved the Millennium Development Goal to reduce hunger and undernutrition by half in the past quarter century. Clearly, the increased consumption of dairy products in the region is one factor which has contributed to the overall success in improving nutrition, particularly among children.
Bangladesh runs a successful school milk pilot scheme implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and it had made a difference in the overall well-being of the children who had received 200 ml of milk each school day.
School milk programmes
Other countries in the region, such as Thailand, have long-running national school milk programmes which have served as useful models in other countries. China, India, Japan and Vietnam also have experience with school milk programmes at various levels.
Milk is rich in minerals like calcium, magnesium and zinc, among others. The wide range of vitamins and amino acids present in milk are important building blocks for cells, bones, and muscles.
So as we work towards a world of zero hunger, milk and dairy products will continue to be among the important foods to help address undernutrition. With 490 million people still undernourished in the Asia-Pacific region, we must intensify our efforts and collaboration with the dairy sector for milk and dairy processes to become even more coordinated and productive.
And there is a clear business case to do so.
Between 1980 and 2013, milk production in the Asia-Pacific region grew at a rate of almost 4.5 per cent per annum against the global average of 1.5 per cent. By 2013, milk production in the Asia-Pacific region had reached 290 million tonnes — 38 per cent of global production — or more than a third of all milk produced in the world.
In fact, dairy is among the top three commodities produced in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of gross value worth more than U.S. $110 billion annually. During the next decade, it is expected that global production of milk will increase by more than 120 million tonnes and two-thirds of this increase will come from the Asia-Pacific region.
The FAO is working with stakeholders in the dairy sector on a Strategic Development Framework in Asia and developing an action plan for implementation and improved collaboration among countries in the region as development of the dairy sector progresses. Value chains will need to improve and we will also need to see improvements in productivity and competitiveness while introducing ways to reduce negative environmental impacts, because with increasing scarcity of, and competition for, natural resources, the sector must produce more efficiently and sustainably.
It is expected that the private sector will play an increasingly important role in attracting private investment. But at the same time, we must ensure that millions of smallholder farmers scattered across the region, including millions of women who contribute to this growing dairy sector, are treated fairly and that everyone involved is properly rewarded for their efforts. Improving the ability of smallholders to organise themselves and attain greater bargaining power in the market place must be a core element of our work as we move forward.
Receive Daily Updates
Recent Posts
- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.