Navigating the global Waterscape, its challenges

• The 31st World Water Day is scheduled for March 22, 2024, with the theme “Leveraging water for peace.”

Context-

• In light of the pressures brought on by climate change, the globe must also promote better collaboration over water-sharing.
• About two billion people worldwide still struggle to get clean water, and demand for it is only growing. This shortage jeopardizes not just our basic necessities as humans but also the prosperity and serenity of the entire community.

Using water diplomacy during an extreme period

• Impact of Climate Crisis: Extreme weather events such as heat waves and floods heighten worries about the impending climate catastrophe. The $3 trillion Indian economy’s agriculture is impacted by the unpredictable monsoons.
• Need for Greater collaboration: It is critical to promote collaboration over water sharing and adopt the universal principles of international water law in light of the difficulties posed by climate change.
• Water diplomacy: Better water diplomacy, which fosters regional and global peace and stability, depends on efficient shared water governance and sustainable water usage.
• Collaborative Governance: Promoting stability and peace in the region, collaborative governance makes sure that countries share water resources fairly.
• Inclusive Approaches: To prevent, reduce, and resolve water-related problems, water diplomacy should incorporate academic and civil society networks as well as the cross-border networks of indigenous and local people.
• Lack of Global Data on Water Quality: This underscores the need for improved access to basic drinking water services, especially in rural regions, and shows a stark disparity between urban and rural areas.

Addressing rural India’s needs-

• The primary source of subsistence for 70% of India’s rural population is agriculture, and water is necessary for household activities. Globally, 70% of freshwater use is attributed to agriculture.
• Water Accessibility: Health, education, employment, and the fulfillment of fundamental human needs and dignity can all benefit from improved water accessibility in rural areas.
• Water Investments: Increasing water investments in rural regions can have a favorable impact on a number of sectors and provide several benefits to communities.
• AI Technology in Agriculture: Water conservation initiatives can be supported by the effective application of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology in agriculture. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to address crop and food loss, reduce chemical and fertilizer use, and maximize water use for sustainable and fruitful results.

The issue of transboundary waters

• Water Pollution: Communities who depend on transboundary rivers for their water supplies face serious environmental and health threats due to the increasing levels of pollution in these rivers, including the Meghna, Brahmaputra, Ganga, and Indus.
• Lack of Governance: To address concerns with fair water distribution, pollution prevention, and sustainable management of shared water resources among adjacent countries, sophisticated cross-border water governance is required.
• Cooperation Difficulties: Even though cooperation on transboundary water resources is crucial, many nations struggle to come to agreements and put in place efficient systems for managing shared water resources. Cooperation efforts are hampered by disagreements over infrastructure development, water usage, and environmental effects.
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Achieving the SDGs, especially Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), requires transboundary water management. The SDG targets pertaining to poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, and water security are impeded by insufficient collaboration and governance frameworks.
• Peace and Security: Tensions and disputes between riparian governments can be intensified by a lack of freshwater in transboundary river basins. Stability in the region and the avoidance of conflicts over shared water resources depend on efficient management and collaboration.
• Ecosystem Services: Transboundary rivers sustain a variety of ecosystems and offer vital ecosystem services like water filtration, biodiversity habitat, and flow control. The integrity of ecosystems and the services they offer are under risk due to pollution and overexploitation of these waterways.

Suggestive Measures to Resolve Transboundary Water Issues:

• Strengthen Governance Structures: To promote fair water distribution, pollution prevention, and sustainable management of shared water resources, comprehensive frameworks for cross-border water governance should be established. These frameworks may include bilateral or multilateral agreements.
• Boost Interaction Mechanisms: Encourage communication and cooperation between riparian states via forums including joint commissions, organizations for river basins, and diplomatic discussions to resolve conflicts and enhance knowledge of the difficulties associated with water management.
• Put integrated water resource management (IWRM) into practice by: To ensure the effective use of transboundary water resources and to promote sustainable development while avoiding adverse effects on communities and ecosystems, adopt integrated water resources management (IWRM) approaches that take social, economic, and environmental concerns into account.
• Enhance Monitoring and Data Sharing: To evaluate water quality, quantity, and usage patterns in transboundary river basins, enhance monitoring systems and data-sharing procedures. Increased openness and information sharing between riparian governments can support cooperative efforts and well-informed decision-making.
• Encourage Community Involvement: Involve civil society organizations, indigenous tribes, and local people in transboundary water management decision-making processes. Grassroots stakeholder empowerment has the potential to improve sustainability, encourage collaboration, and improve accountability.
• Strengthen legal frameworks To effectively govern transboundary water resources, strong legal frameworks must be developed and enforced at both the national and international levels. Laws that are unambiguous and upholdable can serve as a foundation for settling conflicts and guaranteeing adherence to established water management guidelines.

How to bring about White Revolution 2.0

• According to the government’s most recent Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) for 2022–2023, milk is the food item that Indians spend the most money on, both in rural and urban areas.

Key facts as per survey-

• At Rs 314 a month, the average rural Indian person’s consumption of milk and dairy products was higher than that of vegetables (Rs 203), cereals (Rs 185), eggs, fish, and meat (Rs 185), fruits (Rs 140), edible oil (Rs 136), spices (Rs 113), and pulses (Rs 76).
• The HCES data for urban India shows the following: edible oil (Rs 153), spices (Rs 138), milk (Rs 466), fruits (Rs 246), vegetables (Rs 245), grains (Rs 235), eggs, fish & meat (Rs 231), and pulses (Rs 90).

The challenges as per the latest Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES)-

• Growing Milk Prices: The all-India modal price of milk has increased from Rs 42 to Rs 60 per litre during the last five years, with a significant increase from Rs 52 to Rs 60 in just the last year. The rising trend in milk costs is a financial problem for households.
• Inflationary pressures: These forces are thought to have affected consumer demand, which is why milk prices have increased. Increased costs could cause consumers to cut back on their use or switch to other goods, which would hurt the dairy industry’s earnings.
• Increasing Input Costs: Feed, fodder, and raw materials/ingredients have become much more expensive. In order to offset these higher input costs, dairy companies are forced to boost the procurement prices they pay to farmers. Because milk and dairy products are now more expensive at retail, consumers are ultimately the ones who foot the bill for these cost increases.
• Transfer to Customers: Dairies pass on higher procurement prices to customers in an effort to offset the impact of growing input costs, which results in further price increases for milk products. This pass-through method makes things more expensive for customers who are already struggling with rising costs.
• Effect on Agriculture: Farmers may initially profit from higher procurement prices, but if input costs keep rising, they may find it difficult to maintain their dairy farming businesses.

How can that be achieved?

• Utilizing technology for Sex-Sorted Semen (SS): The likelihood of female calves being produced is increased to over 90% when sex-sorted semen is used, as opposed to the 50:50 ratio when conventional semen is used. By guaranteeing a larger percentage of milk-producing cows in the future, this method raises dairy herd production.
• Increased Adoption: Farmers are being aggressively encouraged to utilize sex-sorted semen by dairy cooperatives such as Amul. Amul carried out 2.86 lakh artificial inseminations (AIs) utilizing sex-sorted semen in 2022–2023; this accounted for 20.5% of the total 13.91 lakh AIs performed. By 2024–2025, the cooperative wants to increase this share to 30%.
• Enhanced Conception Rate: About one-third of artificial inseminations with semen that has been sorted according to sex result in pregnancy. This high incidence of conception, along with the certainty of female calves, makes breeding more effective and produces a greater number of milk-producing cows.
• Long-term Impact: Dairy farmers can expect a larger output of milk-producing cows in subsequent generations by boosting the amount of female calves delivered through sex-sorted semen technology. By increasing the efficiency of milk production, this proactive strategy guarantees the dairy industry’s growth and sustainability.
• Cooperative Initiatives: Farmers’ adoption of cutting-edge breeding technology is greatly aided by dairy cooperatives. Cooperatives help to improve the genetic potential of dairy herds and increase total productivity through programs like Amul’s targeted usage of sex-sorted semen.

Taking to farmer/ significance of Breeding Centre-

• Creation of a Bovine Breeding Center: In March 2020, Amul opened a Bovine Breeding Center in Mogar, Gujarat, with the goal of producing a superior nucleus herd of bulls and cows for the use of embryo transfer (ET) and artificial insemination (AI) technology.
• The center’s main goal is to generate superior semen and in vitro-fertilized embryos that are kept at extremely low temperatures for use in artificial intelligence (AI) or to be injected into farm animals.
• Breeds and Milk Yield: The center has generated a range of breeds, with differing capacity for milk yield ranging from 3,000 to 12,000 liters per year. These include exotic breeds (such as Holstein-Friesian and Jersey), as well as crossbred HF-Gir and HF-Sahiwal.
• Use of Male and Female Genetics: The center makes use of sex-sorted semen and AI to capitalize on male genetics, while IVF-ET technology is mostly used to take use of donor cows’ female genetics.
• Farmers’ Adoption: Amul has made IVF-ET technology available to farmers, and the company has documented successful pregnancies and calvings. The Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation’s member unions have welcomed these developments as well, and farmers such as Bhavnaben Chaudhary have benefited from improved milk outputs and financial gains due to the use of superior breeds obtained through IVF-ET.
• Favoritism for Particular Breeds: Despite lower yields, farmers such as Bhavnaben Chaudhary favour breeds like Kankrej due to their higher fat and solids-not-fat content, which guarantees better pricing and reduced expenses for feeding and upkeep.

Animal nutrition/ lowering the cost of producing milk at the farm-gate

• Reduction of Feeding Expenses: High-yielding, high-protein green fodder grasses must be cultivated in order to minimize animal feeding expenses. As a result, there is less need for costly compound cow feed and concentrates made of oil meal.Reducing the cost of milk production at the farm gate would undoubtedly have to be the main goal of White Revolution 2.0.
• Total Mixed Ration (TMR) Plant Introduction: At Sarsa in Anand, Amul is building a 30-tonne-per-day TMR factory. TMR will give animals ready-to-eat mashed nourishment in the form of concentrates, green and dry feed, vitamins, and mineral mixes.
• Advantages of TMR: Farmers will save money by not having to buy, store, or handle the labor-intensive task of mixing forage with cattle feed. It provides an easy-to-use and economical way to feed animals.
• Obtaining Fodder: According to the proposal, fodder will be obtained via farmer producer organizations (FPOs), whose members will grow silage for the TMR plant and cultivate oat grass, hybrid napier, maize, or jowar.
• Focus on High-Yielding Grasses: In order to preserve the wellbeing and output of dairy cattle, farmers will concentrate on growing high-yielding grass species that are high in protein.

RBI finalises Omnibus Framework for SROs in regulated entities

• On Thursday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that the Omnibus Framework for its Regulated Entities’ recognition of Self-Regulatory Organizations (SRO) had been finalized.

The key features of the Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO)-

• Omnibus Framework: To recognize Self-Regulatory Organizations (SROs) for regulated entities, the RBI has completed the omnibus framework. This framework includes general guidelines including goals, roles, qualifications, rules of governance, application procedure, and other prerequisites for recognition.
• Guidelines Particular to a Sector: For every industry in which an SRO is to be established, sector-specific recommendations will be released independently by the Reserve Bank’s corresponding departments. This guarantees that the SROs meet the particular demands and specifications of their corresponding industries.
• Draft Framework and Public Consultation: Following a public comment period on a draft framework for SROs, the omnibus framework was finalized after considering the feedback received. This suggests that the SRO structure was developed through consultation.
• Credibility and Responsibilities: Under the regulator’s supervision, SROs are supposed to conduct themselves with impartiality, credibility, and responsibility. In order to support the wholesome and long-term growth of the industries they serve, they seek to enhance regulatory compliance.
• Transparency and Independence: To increase public trust in the industry’s integrity, SROs are expected to conduct their business with independence, professionalism, and transparency. Adherence to the highest governance standards is a need for a successful SRO.

The significance of Self-Regulatory Organizations (SROs)-

• Improved Regulatory Compliance: By establishing and upholding industry best practices and standards, SROs help their member organizations comply with regulations more effectively. SROs assist regulated entities in maintaining compliance with pertinent laws and regulations by establishing clear rules and overseeing adherence to them.
• sector Integrity and Public Confidence: SROs are essential to preserving and strengthening public confidence in the sector. SROs aid in the development of trust among stakeholders, such as clients, investors, and regulatory bodies, by encouraging openness, professionalism, and moral behavior.
• Tailored Regulation: SROs are able to create industry-specific rules and guidelines that are adapted to the particular demands and features of their respective fields. Because of their versatility, SROs are able to efficiently address difficulties unique to each industry, which results in more efficient regulation.
• Effective Self-Regulation: By working together to create and implement norms and regulations, SROs empower industry players to engage in self-regulation. Traditional government regulation may not always be as responsive or flexible as this strategy since SROs are able to react swiftly to new threats and changes in the market.
• Decreased Regulatory Burden: By assuming some regulatory responsibilities, SROs can assist in reducing the regulatory load on government agencies. Regulators can concentrate their efforts on supervising wider market activity and managing systemic risks by assigning SROs duties including rule-making, monitoring, and enforcement.
• Innovation and Growth: By establishing a favorable regulatory environment, SROs can promote innovation and growth within their respective industries. SROs can promote innovation while making sure it complies with legal requirements and consumer protection standards by offering advice on cutting-edge technologies and business models.