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ment to canalize all milk and dairy
surpluses of the European Union
which were proposed to be dumped
as aid to India, to NDDB. By carefully
calibrating the release of imported
milk and dairy products into the In-
dian market at market price, NDDB
mobilised capital for investment into
milk and dairy processing technology
for the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Mar-
keting Federation (GCMMF), which
promoted the Amul brand.
This technology enabled GCMMF
to purchase Gujarat farmers’ surplus
milk in the flush winter season at
above cost price, convert it into milk
powder which was ‘recombinated’
into milk and sold in the summer sea-
son of milk shortage at steady prices.
Through this stratagem GCMMF was NDBB hi-tech milk processing plant in Gujarat. Inset: Dr. Verghese Kurien
able to pay dairy farmers market pric-
es for milk through the year. Winter for mysterious reasons it has not disproportionate influence that agri-
surpluses were also converted into been permitted to strike root. On the culture wholesalers and middlemen
butter, cheese, paneer, margarine etc, contrary R.N. Bhaskar, former con- exercise in the corridors of power of
to ensure that “not a drop of milk was sulting editor of Business India and state governments. These middlemen
wasted”. After the success of GCMMF prolific blogger, suspects an establish- (usually kith and kin of politicians and
and Amul, NDDB promoted successful ment conspiracy to erase the history bureaucrats) are totally averse to close
dairy farmers cooperatives country- of Dr. Kurien’s astonishing metamor- agriculture-industry connect which
wide as a result of which chronically phosis of India’s dairy industry (see would result in forward markets and
milk-deficient India of the 1960s has bhaskarr@substack.com). Although contract farming. For decades, they
transformed into the world’s largest Kurien himself tried to replicate the have ensured that only small and mi-
producer of milk and dairy products. successful Amul model for the oil- cro sector enterprises — rather than
Y ET INSTEAD OF THIS dairy ventures failed. censed to enter the agri-produce pro-
organised sector corporates — are li-
seeds and horticulture sectors, these
farmers’ champion be-
One explanation of the continuous
cessing business.
This hypothesis is supported by the
ing hailed as a hero and
majority to get remunerative prices
role model, Kurien was failure of independent India’s rural fact that among the several demands
fiercely criticized by communists and for farm produce is that under the of SKM farm leaders is prohibition of
leftists in Parliament and the media Constitution, agriculture is essential- modern warehousing facilities being
as a ‘foreign agent’. In 1984 as edi- ly a States list subject, although some established by the Adani Group, and
tor of BusinessWorld magazine, your sectors are listed in the Concurrent proscription of forward markets and
correspondent wrote a detailed cover list. Some monitors of the paradox contract farming which would permit
feature titled ‘Operation Flood: Case of a primarily agriculture economy large corporates to monetise food pro-
for the defence’ which narrated the failing to develop a downstream food duction in a big way.
facts and circumstances of Kurien’s processing industry attribute it to the Farm leaders seem unaware that
heroic conversion of chronically milk closer linkages between farms and
deficient India into the world’s largest By careful calibration of factories is necessary for the growth
producer of milk and dairy products, of a viable agri-produce processing
which shut them up good and proper. imported milk and dairy industry, and cutting out the string
However, despite this model which products Dr. Kurien mobilised of middlemen who multiply farmgate
in effect provides dairy farmers mini- prices eight-tenfold before farm pro-
mum support prices without govern- capital for processing duce — especially perishable fruit and
ment intervention being available technology for GCMMF which vegetables — reaches the consumer.
for replication for farm produce, and promoted the Amul brand Closer farm-factory linkage is also
horticulture products in particular, necessary to stimulate crop diver-

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