20 Farmer-Owned MPCs Comprise 70 Per Cent Women: NDDB

NDDB Dairy Services (NDS) promotes 20 farmer-owned Milk Producer Companies (MPCs) which has been created by nearly 0.75 million farmers. In these companies, 70 per cent are women including the ownership of 12 MPCs, Meenesh Shah, chairman, National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) said.

These farmer-owned organisations return up to 85 per cent of consumer money realised to members, including over 0.5 million female members. Shreeja Milk Producer Company has the distinction of being the world’s largest all-women MPC, in Tirupati, according to an NDDB statement.

Speaking at the IDF World Dairy Summit 2022, Shah said the value of milk procurement by MPCs is estimated to jump close to INR 18,000 crore over the next five years, from INR 5,575 crore in 2021-22.

He said, “In the next five years, daily milk procurement by MPCs will increase to 10 million litres.”

Farmers associated with MPCs have pooled in over INR 175 crore in the last 10 years and collectively have over INR 400 crore as reserves and surplus, Shah said.

Shah said MPCs are taking forward the legacy of the White Revolution created by the NDDB, which has conceptualised the creation of these farmers’ organisations and NDS for facilitation, and technical and organisational assistance.

“The startup concept may have come recently but the MPCs are the real startups working since long,” he said adding that NDDB will help set up MPCs in every aspiring district, and the cooperatives and MPCs would cover the entire length and breadth of the nation.

While the organised private sector is growing steadily, it is important — in the interest of livelihoods and inclusiveness — that cooperatives and other producer organisations such as MPCs continue to handle at least 50 per cent of the milk handled by the organised sector, NDS stated.

India ranks first among the world’s milk-producing nations since 1998, after surpassing the United States as the biggest producer of milk.

According to the Economic Survey 2021-22, India’s milk production has grown at a compound annual growth rate of about 6.2 per cent to reach 209.9 million tonne (mt) in 2020-21, from 146.3 mt in 2014-15.

About 50 per cent of the milk produced in the country is retained for local consumption. Of the remaining 50 per cent — or the marketable surplus — cooperatives procure about 17 per cent, from around 20 per cent of rural milk-producing households in 23 per cent of the country’s villages.