The Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union (Amul) is headquartered at Anand. Planners, economists, administrators, dairymen, journalists have been visiting Anand to study the ingredients of its success.
| The Anand Pattern is essentially an economic organizational pattern to benefit small producers who join hands forming an integrated approach in order to economy of a large scale business. The whole operation is professionally managed so that the individual producers have the freedom to decide their own policies. The adoption of modern production and marketing techniques helps in providing those services that small producers individually can neither afford nor manage. |  |
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It has succeeded largely because Anand Model involves people in their own development and because their interests are safe in their own hands. Under Operation Flood the entire institutional infrastructure set up at the village level, the district level and the state level is owned and operated by the farmers themselves. The Anand Model co-operatives have progressively eliminated middlemen, bringing the producers in direct contact with consumers. |
The Anand Pattern succeeded because it gave a fair price to the farmer and high – quality milk and milk products to the consumer. What would have been middlemen’s profits in the earlier system got absorbed into development projects for primary producer or lower cost for the consumer. In short, the Anand Pattern meant the utilization of resources in the most profitable manner at grass-root level.
| The Three Tier Structure: Primary Village Co-operative Society. The First Tier – Primary village Co-operative Society: An Anand Pattern village dairy cooperative society (DCS) is formed by milk producers. Any producer can become a DCS member by buying a share and committing to sell milk only to the society. Each DCS has a milk collection centre where members take milk every day. Each member’s milk is tested for quality with payments based on the percentage of fat and SNF. At the end of each year, a portion of the DCS profits is used to pay each member a patronage bonus based on the quantity of milk poured. This also acts as a vital link for various productivity enhancement and development programmes of farmers programmes. |
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District Union The 2nd Tier – District Union: District Union:
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A District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union is owned by dairy cooperative societies. It is a Union of primary village co-operative societies within a district. The Union buys all the societies’ milk, then processes and markets fluid milk and products. Union also provides a range of inputs and services to village co-operative societies and their members: feed, veterinary care, artificial insemination to sustain the growth of milk production and the cooperatives’ business. Union staff train and provide consulting services to support village co-operative society leaders and staff. |
| The State Federation – 3rd Tier The State Federation:The cooperative milk producers’ unions in a state form a State Federation which is an apex marketing body responsible for marketing of milk and milk products of member unions. The Federation also plays a role in the overall development of the district unions federated to it.Maximizing farmer profit and productivity through cooperative effort is the hallmark of the Anand Pattern. |  |
Social impact
The spread of the co-operative movement in the villages is contributing to social changes. Some of the changes are:
The democratic process – election of the village society’s office-bearers – is breaking down social and economic divisions. The society is being perceived as a means of livelihood – unlike, say, a panchayat. The feeling, therefore, is that it ought to be managed by those who are likely to run it most efficiently – not necessarily by the entrenched elite.
District Union The 2nd Tier – District Union: District Union:
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Caste barriers are slowly breaking down in equalizing queues before the milk collection centre. In the traditional societies untouchables could not have even dreamt of selling milk for common consumption. This social barrier has been removed by the milk co-operatives.Modern concepts like organization, technology, and social concern are entering the rural areas. In their search for solutions in other compartments of life, farmers often used the expression, “something like the dairy “or “similar to what the dairy does.” |
| Education in a non-school sense is also spreading. Veterinary care, the supply of balanced cattle feed, and artificial insemination centers are contributing to health education, nutrition education and sex education.There is a change in the status of women. Generally income from milk is considered to be earned by them. Men concede that those women should have a say in how this money is to be spent. |  |
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Hope has kindled in landless labourers without employment that they do not have to migrate to cities in search of an income. Milk co-operative societies have created white-collar jobs too.Amul continues to inspire one and all interested not only in dairying but also in other areas, people involved in the rural development and sustaining livelihood through massive employment generation. |
Source Website: http://www.amuldairy.com