GS Paper I

News Excerpt:

Breastfeeding is a highly gendered work that is neglected and under-valued economically, but if recognised, infrastructure set up for the purpose can act as carbon offsets for sustainable food, health and economic systems.

Breast Milk vs milk formula food:

• Commercial milk formula food, is part of the multibillion-dollar baby food industry, and is linked to poor child and maternal health.
• It generates around 11-14 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions (more than that of eggs, poultry, and vegetables combined).
• It also uses more than 5,000 liters of water during its life cycle. 
• Breast milk, on the other hand is economically valuable, leaves a low carbon footprint, and is essential for well-being. 
• Breastfeeding women nourish half the world’s infants and young children.

Breastfeeding as part of the National GDP:

• No country in the world accounts for this care work of breastfeeding mothers in their GDP figures or national budgets.
• Caring for and nourishing children, including breastfeeding, is highly gendered work that is often ignored and under-valued economically.
• The current GDP-growth-based paradigm and food security statistics fail to account for the economic value of breastfeeding women in producing “vast quantities of highly valuable breastmilk”. 

Significance of recognising the economic value of breastfeeding;

• Global health researchers propose to recognise the simple fact that women contribute to sustainable food production, and breastfeeding infrastructures deserve to be invested in as ‘carbon offsets’.
• This will benefit “the populations in developing countries most burdened by the harms of the commercial milk formula industry”.
• It will also acknowledge “the value of women’s breastfeeding efforts for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions”.

Arguments for recognising the ecological and economic value of breastfeeding:

• The contention is two-fold. 
• One, commercial milk formulas are a maladaptive practice in the context of emerging population and environmental crises. 
• In contrast, breastfeeding is a renewable, economical and an environmentally friendly natural resource, often neglected in sustainable food production and climate change. 
• Globally, 21.9 billion litres of human milk is annually lost because governments fail to invest in supporting breastfeeding. 
• Adequate recognition and resources through international climate change financing “can support new public investments in breastfeeding as a carbon offset.”
• It will bring significant gains and co-benefits for women’s, children’s and planetary health.
• The United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) allows lower-middle-income countries to avail financing by high-income countries for new policies and programmes to generate offsets to carbon emissions. 
• CDM could be a “potential platform” for recognising breastfeeding as a carbon offset. 

Breastfeeding and the link to sustainable food infrastructures:

• Environmental benefits:

• • It produces zero garbage, minimal greenhouse gasses, and tiny water footprint.
  • It is better for the environment even if breastfeeding mothers eat and drink more. 
  • A British medical journal (BMJ) study showed that exclusive breastfeeding for six months saves an estimated 95-153 kg CO2 equivalent per baby compared with formula feeding. 

• Nutritional and health benefits:

• Health and economic benefits are derived from the associated infant and maternal health outcomes. 
• Nutrition in the early stages of life produces healthier outcomes that use fewer health course resources. 
• As per the WHO, exclusive breastfeeding is a “child’s first immunization” against respiratory infections, obesity, diarrhoeal disease, and other potentially life-threatening ailments.
• A lack of breastfeeding support is linked to increased disease prevalence in women and children, adding to the healthcare cost and deepening the caregiver burden. 
• In the long run, it also betrays the need for a gender-just transition to sustainable development.

Breastfeeding Substitutes:

• Research over the years hint at the conservative ecological costs of breastfeeding substitutes:
  • Producing a commercial milk formula requires industry dairy farming for milk production, milk processing, formula manufacturing, transport, packaging, and electricity to heat the milk at a particular temperature. 
  • One estimate showed the average water footprint of milk powder is roughly 4700 L/kg6 (the equivalent of almost 140 showers). 
  • A 2016 study found emissions from this industry were equivalent to six billion miles of car travel. 
  • Water, waste and methane have shaped the prosperous commercial milk formula industry.
• There are also some social and health implications of commercial milk formula:
  • A boom in milk formula sales in emerging middle-income countries like India was associated with a decline in breastfeeding, a lack of maternity protection for breastfeeding, unregulated company marketing of baby foods and inadequate support of breastfeeding by health services. 
  • The WHO recommends newborns are breastfed within the first hour of birth; exclusively breastfed for the first four to six months, and continue to receive breastmilk for up to two years of age. 
  • However, less than half of newborns worldwide are breastfed within an hour of birth, and only 44% are exclusively breastfed from birth to six months, according to a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research. 
  • It was also found that increased marketing of formulas such as Nestle’s in LMICs “was correlated with a substantial reduction in breastfeeding”. 
    • This, in turn, has had a negative impact on infants’ health.

• Commercial milk formulas have a rich history going back to the 19th century: 

• They rose as an alternative to meet the nutrition requirements of infants who could not be breastfed. 
• Today, more than half of the world’s children receive heavily marketed breastmilk substitutes in their first six months of life. 
• Others receive follow-up formulas and “growing up” milk -- products considered unnecessary by the WHO.
• In India, popular breastmilk substitutes include Lactogen, Cerelac, Nestle, Farex, Dexolac and Similac. 
• The milk substitutes market in India is projected to grow by 18.19% between 2024 and 2028, according to the latest CAGR report.

Breastfeeding as carbon offset:

• Considering breastfeeding as a carbon offset could divert funds from commercial milk formula markets to environments where women operate. 
• Considering breastfeeding as a carbon offset isn’t about coercion or shifting climate change responsibility but rather about directing funds to governments recognizing the environmental impact of commercial milk formula markets, facilitating a gender-just transition to sustainable development, and creating an enabling environment for women who wish to breastfeed.

Way forward:

• The governments should consider breastfeeding as the “highest quality, local, sustainable first-food system for generations to come”.
• They need to better recognise women’s contributions to sustainable food production, including breastmilk, in international and national food balance sheets.
• This consideration must seep within the systems of value and measurement adhered to in the international order. 
• New metrics, such as Mothers’ Milk Tool, are being developed to measure the economic contribution of breastfeeding mothers. 
• In India, one seventh of breast milk produced was lost in three years due to lack of investment.
• Policies such as funding skilled birth attendance, maternity care, and social protections like paid maternity leave would support higher breastfeeding rates, while also redirecting financial resources away from carbon-emitting activities. 
• Breastfeeding, is a timely illustration of how “current thinking and systems undervalue what matters, inequitably distort investment priorities and strengthen commercial drivers of health.