Changing environment and dairy cooperatives in India

摘要

The policies of the 1990s — liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation — have accentuated the vulnerability of small-farm agriculture and traditional craft-based, non-farm enterprises, threatening the livelihood and security of large sections of India's population. The limited capacity of other sectors of the economy to absorb these changes is clear from the fact that employment generation is much below the steady increase of the workforce over all these years. Employment opportunities are becoming increasingly scarce and the capital and knowledge intensity of the jobs is steadily on the rise. Under such circumstances as these, dairying has continued to grow and offer opportunities to many marginalised people, especially in rural areas. However, the growth in supplies has created adverse terms of exchange and made dairying unattractive for those who can shift to other occupations. The steep downturn in prices has been checked to some extent by the presence of cooperatives. Dairying is an important sub-sector of the agricultural sector of India's economy. Among crop and livestock products, milk is the number one farm commodity in terms of its contribution to the gross value of output from agriculture in the national economy. India has more cooperatives and more cooperative members than any other country in the world. Barring a few cooperatives in the supply sectors; namely, credit, inputs, consumers and housing and in commodity sectors like sugar, dairy and fertiliser, cooperatives have not met with wide success. Dairy cooperatives following the Anand pattern are among those that have met with relative success.