Is There Room For A Dairy Behemoth?

Many cooperatives are struggling financially. But a pan-India mega brand will be hard to pull off

- Sayantan Bera

On an October morning in 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri, then Prime Minister of India, was engrossed in a conversation. He was looking to clear his doubts after spending the night at a farmer's house in Anand, Gujarat. Shastri, after he was informed about the stellar performance of a local dairy cooperative, was keen to understand why it succeeded while scores of others across India failed. But after speaking to the residents of Ajarpura village in Anand district, Shastri was puzzled. The soil, rainfall and climate of Anand was nothing out of ordinary.

“I had expected to see the entire landscape green, with cattle grazing contentedly, but the whole place is brown, just like the rest of India… I looked at your farmers. They are good people—farmers are always good people—but they are not as hardworking as the farmers of Punjab. I cannot find a single reason why Anand is such a great success. Now, can you tell me what is the secret?" Shastri asked Verghese Kurien, then general manager of the Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers’ Union, and the architect of India’s White Revolution, the world’s largest dairy development programme that began in 1970. Anand was earlier a part of Kaira district.