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India has been called 'a country of villages'. There are as many as
6,38,596 villages in India. A study held in 2008 by Max
New York Life Insurance and the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) shows that
70%, i.e., 732 million of Indian population, thrives in these
villages (Jehangir, 2009). Gandhiji clearly pointed out
that villagers are the backbone of the Indian economy
(Perumal et al., 2007). The primary occupation in the villages is agriculture supplemented with cattle rearing. India being
a rural and agro-based economy, 54% of its workforce is engaged in agriculture, of
which 37% are women (Sapovadia and Achutan, 2006). As high as 78%
of agriculture is dependent on monsoon and farmers curse their fate if they do not get a good crop.
The rainfall has been erratic and the areas are prone to both drought and floods,
rendering agricultural income uncertain for farmers. Most of the time
the farmers have to borrow money to meet the cultivation cost of agricultural crops and other social
obligations. Since the agricultural income is uncertain and deceptive, farmers easily
get entangled in the debt cycle. Moreover, the combination of unfavorable
land-to-person ratio and fragmented landholding makes it difficult to support large families on crop income
alone. Thus, the underutilized labor potential and a dire need for additional
income force farmers to look for subsidiary
sources of income. Rearing milch cattle and selling its milk
give rise to an additional stream of income. It is a real relief to most of the weaker groups
of Indian society. The income from crop production is seasonal. On the contrary, dairy as
an occupation helps them to procure stable income year
round. In India, dairy is recognized as a substantial contributor towards social and economic development. The nation's
milk supply comes from millions of small producers, dispersed throughout the rural areas.
70-75% of households of small and marginal farmers and landless laborers are wedded
to the dairy traditionally since ancient times (Shah,
2000). These small and marginal farmers contribute a large chunk
to the milk production. They collectively hold about 70%
of the national milk-animal herd. Often one or two milk animals enable these farmers
to generate sufficient additional income to break the vicious subsistence agricultural
debt cycle.
Domestication of cattle occurred about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.
The cow was so important to the ancient people of Central
Asia, that wealth was measured in terms of the number of cattle held by them
(Eckles et al., 1951). India was earlier a milk deficit
country. Due to the concerted efforts under the White
Revolution, it gradually became a milk surplus country. In the early
1999, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) declared India as the world's largest producer of milk. According to FAO Global
Food Outlook Report, milk production in India crossed
74 million tons by March 1999.
As of 2006-07, the figure stood at 100.9 million
tons, while milk production in the US, the second largest
producer, was 71 million tons. This rapid growth and modernization
are largely credited to the contribution of dairy cooperatives under the Operation Flood
(OF) Project. It was assisted by many multilateral agencies, including the European Union,
the World Bank, FAO, and World Food Program (WFP) who promoted milk production
and animal husbandry. The dairy cooperative system represents more than 13 million
dairy farmers belonging to about 1.22 lakh primary cooperative societies, which sell their
product to one of the 198 milk producers' cooperative unions. These unions, in
turn, are supported by state cooperative milk marketing federations. The annual rate of growth
of milk production in India is between 5-6%, against the world growth rate
of 1%. The age of cooperative movement can be traced back to the first and the oldest human society. |
