During her visit to Amul headquarters in Anand Gujarat, on 29th September, Hon. Union Minister of Food Processing Industries, Ms. Harsimrat Kaur Badal acknowledged the valuable contribution of Amul cooperative model in securing India’s food security in one of its most critical dimensions: milk & dairy products. While appreciating Amul’s contribution to nation-building, the Hon. Minister stated that dairy cooperative movement inspired by Amul model has enabled India to become the highest milk producing country in the world, with 17% share of global milk production. ‘Amul cooperative model is the prime example of how Indian farmers can set standards of excellence that the entire world aspires to emulate. Amul is truly the pride of India’, added the Minister. With India’s population likely to rise to 170 crores in the next five decades and level of urbanization anticipated to exceed 50% in next fifty years, ensuring food security of our nation will remain the topmost priority. ‘Through the success of Amul, our farmers have proved that they very much capable of overcoming the challenge of ensuring food security, provided we enable them to exercise control over a large part of food value chain’, stated the Minister.
While visiting GCMMF Headquarters and the Amul dairy plant, the Hon. Minister appreciated the fact that 33 lakhs farmer-members of Amul have benefited immensely from market access, financial linkages and value-additional through marketing & technological innovations provided by the cooperative. The Minister made a firsthand assessment of socio-economic revolution unleashed by Amul in rural Gujarat, as well as the IT-enabled supply chain network which ensure that 80% of consumer’s rupee spent on Amul’s products, ultimately flow back to the farmers. ‘The real beneficiaries of Amul cooperative model are millions of Indian consumers who now have access to high quality and hygienic milk and dairy products. At the same time, millions of rural women and small farmers have attained gainful employment as well as remunerative livelihood, thanks to Amul’, noted the Minister.
Hon’ble Minister has also visited two food processing units in Boriavi village to see value addition in fresh vegetable and other agriculture produce like ginger and turmeric by farmers which enabled them to realize better prices for their product. At Vrundavan cold storage, Hon’ble Minister has noticed that farmers income from ginger is increased from Rs. 5.50 lakhs per hectare to Rs. 15 Lakhs per hectare and turmeric income from Rs. 5 lakhs to Rs. 20 lakhs by adopting simple technological invention at local level. Similarly, at M Z Cold storage Minister is amazed to see various grading, sorting and frozen technology adopted by farmer.
Photo Caption: Shri R S Sodhi, MD, Amul Federation and Dr. K Rathnam, MD, Kaira Milk Union is explaining to Hon’ble Minister.
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