The Government must take more steps to nurture and protect milk producers, said Nirmala Kurien, daughter of the legendary Verghese Kurien, the Father of White Revolution.
Inaugurating the Dr V. Kurien Academic Centre at Mehsana, she said milk contributes the most to agricultural gross domestic product in the country and “therefore the government does everything in its power to help, nurture and protect milk producers”.
The Dr V Kurien Academic Centre is part of Mansinhbhai Institute of Dairy and Food Technology at Mehsana that offers BTech course in dairy.
Going down the memory lane, an emotional Kurien said, “My father was in the business of developing people and milk was only a tool. He worked, lived and died in Anand for 63 years as an extremely contented and happy man.”
Verghese Kurien, who passed away last year, could establish a profitable milk cooperative business in Gujarat as he could sell the products at a competitive rate.
Tracing the growth of Amul, which started with a meagre collection of 250 litres milk a day, Kurien said “At that time there existed Nestle, Cadbury, Polsuns, Unilever, Horlicks but today Amul is synonymous with milk and it is the largest producer of milk and milk products and it is owned by farmers”.
“My father believed in empowering the farmers and he never doubted your ability to work hard and produce more and more if there was a market,” Kurien told hundreds of farmers gathered at the event.
Stating that the Milk Man of India believed the cooperative model was the only answer to bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots in the country, Kurien said: “He had no doubt in his mind that India would be one of the most powerful nations in the world but worried that 70 per cent of our people who are mostly farmers should also be given an opportunity to earn more”.
Recalling the contributions of Verghese Kurien, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation and Dudhsagar Dairy Chairman, Vipul Chaudhury, demanded that the Milk Man of India should be honoured with Bharat Ratna for the development of dairy sector.
R.S.Sodhi, Managing Director, GCMMF – which owns Amul Brand, said the rising income levels is driving the growth of milk consumption in India. “The coming three decades will prove to be golden era for milk producers in India as supplies turn stagnant elsewhere globally, while the demand grows.”
(This correspondent's visit was sponsored by Dudhsagar Dairy)