LATENT WATER EXPORT

The students of science would have studied what is latent heat and how it affects the person if one comes in contact with it.  There is a concept of latent water and that is more destructible in terms of water availability to the nation.  Most of the advanced nations have understood this concept and have started shifting the work which has potential for use of lot of water to the developing countries.  Let us look at what is latent water and how it affects the nation.  

Rice, Sugar cane, banana are traditionally cultivated in most of the Asian nations and in some of the tropical countries in the Caribbean islands and South American nations.  These nations produce more than what they require for their local consumption.  The surplus, most of the times, the best of the produce, is exported to the developed countries. The agricultural operations for these require a lot more water and most of the river basins in these nations are the rice, sugar cane and banana fields.  The agricultural operations use maximum water and the crops are sustained with the water from the monsoon rains or glaciers melting and flowing down the river.

There is another area of operations in most of the developing countries is that they vie with each other for getting orders for making cotton and leather garments for the people in the advanced countries.  Though cotton as an agricultural produce cannot be bracketed with the above three water guzzling produce, the making of garments is definitely a major water user industry.  From the time of making yarn to coloring them to finish the product, water is used extensively in cotton garments.  Less said about the leather garments. From the time, the hides of the animals are cleaned to make them leather usable in the garment making industry or other products, so much water is used.  The much needed foreign exchange is earned by these two garments apart from export of agricultural produce like rice, sugar etc.

The country's policies in terms of labor, wages etc. determine the nation's ability to be a manufacturing hub for these as the price of the final product ready for export determines the non stop orders.  The country also in the hunt for the elusive foreign exchange (read US dollars), relaxes much of the regulations in terms of the labor and wages when it comes to the export oriented units and thus ensures continuity of export orders to those units involved in making garments, production and packaging of rice, sugar etc.  To remain competitive in the highly divided developing world, the countries vie with one another to attract the foreign bulk buyers to its shores.  The typical bonded labor type of arrangements for the workers, least concern for the workers' safety, highly congested atmosphere in such factories housed in clusters very close to each other have not dithered the buyers from accessing these nations for their product.  Some of the huge retail chains have faced criticism from many for overlooking these safety concerns in their quest for profit and low cost manufacture.

The leather garment is another area where the developing countries have been competing with each other and also with some of the developed nations like France and Italy to make good quality leather from hides and making garments and leather goods for export.  The conversion of hides into leather is a tedious process using enormous quantity of water.  The leather that is made from different animal hides is graded according to the suppleness and grains on the body.  The different quality of leather is used in making different products.  India holds the record in making leather goods - garments to shoe uppers to wallets to bags to belts.  Some of the Asian nations are now catching up with India.

Howsoever, if one looks closely at all the goods and produce exported from the developing countries to the advanced economies in the world, they are mainly highly water dependent products.  Less water dependent products like engineering goods are imported by these nations from the advanced economies.  The water that is slowly becoming a scarce commodity is being extensively used to make or produce all these export oriented items by the developing economies. The produce or the product thus exported has a water content in producing or manufacturing these exported goods.  The labor conditions in most of the developing economies are still in nascent stages are non-existent.  The safety precautions, health conditions, working environments in these manufacturing hubs are very minimal leading to many untimely death and disease ridden workforce.  The governments are trying to improve the conditions of these manufacturing units and the countries are trying a fine balance between remaining competitive in the global trade and a healthy nation.  The very high population in these countries also to an extent contribute to this pathetic state of affairs.

The global climate change that is happening fast in the past few decades is a worrying sign that the water that is available in abundance across these nations is shrinking. The requirement of drinking water takes precedence over the industry in these nations and in a few decades the industries in these nations will face shortage of enough water for export which is both a good and a bad sign.