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Do Dairy Co-operatives Enhance Milk Production, Productivity and Quality? Evidences from the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India

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Title Do Dairy Co-operatives Enhance Milk Production, Productivity and Quality? Evidences from the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India
 
Creator Kumar, A
Parappurathu, S
Jee, S
 
Subject Agriculture-Farming, Production, Technology, Economics
 
Description Dairy development of India has been acclaimed as one of the most successful development programmes in
the world. The co-operatives were conceived as the main vehicle for implementing dairy development
programmes in India and much of the SUCCesS of the 'White Revolution' in the country is attributed to cooperative
framework of the dairy development strategies. Nonetheless, the potential of the dairy cooperatives
in the context of emerging globalised markets is often questioned. The emergence of several
integrated marketing models backed by giant multinationals is posing stiff competition to the co-operative
models of milk marketing. In this backdrop, this study examines the impact of co-operatives at the farm
level based on the data collected from 675 dairy farming households in three states of India - Bihar,
Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. These states represent geographical and institutional diversity of milk
production and marketing in the country, This study aims at analysing the impact of dairy co-operatives on
the farmers' performance with the adoption of milk quality and safety practices. The findings indicate that
the stature of the 'as the multifunctional entity for dairy fanners of rural India is still intact. A
cross comparison between the member and the non-member farmers of the dairy co-operatives sUllge:sts
that the scale of farming and level of adoption of improved animals have been significantly higher for
member fanners. Similarly, the eo-operative member households contributed significantly higher quantity
of milk at higher levels of productivity than their non-member counterparts, The eo-operative members
were found to have better market access for selling milk. Per unit cost of milk production was on the lower
side for the members and they realised higher price of milk than the non-member farmers. More
importantly, the members were relatively better adopters of milk safety and hygiene practices' and had
lower additional cost of compliance and that in turn would promote better compliance. Further, the paper
identifies the major factors that enabled the dairy farmers to participate in co-operatives. The results of the
Probit analysis suggested that the socio-economic and demographic factors like education, experience,
scale of farming, size of holdings, caste affiliation, etc, determine the participation of dairy farmers in cooperatives.
The membership in the co-operatives gives a distinct advantage to dairy farmers for enhanced
milk yield, productivity and quality, and thereby increases their competitiveness in the domestic and
international markets. The potential of dairy co-operatives need to be fully exploited in the country, and to
empower them further, new initiatives should be vigorously pursued.
 
Publisher Indian Society of Agricultural Economics
 
Date 2013
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/7340/1/IndJAgriEco_68_3_457-468_2013.pdf
Kumar, A and Parappurathu, S and Jee, S (2013) Do Dairy Co-operatives Enhance Milk Production, Productivity and Quality? Evidences from the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India. Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 68 (3). pp. 457-468. ISSN 0019-5014