The cooperative movement in Gujarat started with a modest attempt to organize 20 villages in Kheda district of Gujarat to collectively produce and supply milk to Bombay. This model of cooperatives was later expanded to Kheda district to form Anand Milk Union, widely known as Amul, and then, under the National Dairy Development Board, to other districts of Gujarat in the 1970s and to 170 districts of India in 1980s. The village cooperatives are linked to the markets through districtlevel cooperatives. Setting up of cooperatives brought about a remarkable increase in milk production in Gujarat. Between 1977-78 and 1991-92, the production of milk in Gujarat increased from about 2 million tonnes to about 3.6 million tonnes (an average growth of about 4.3 percent per annum).
The cooperatives have developed modern systems of veterinary care and artificial insemination and provide these services to a large number of milk producers at very low prices. The district cooperatives have vans equipped with a trained veterinary surgeon and medicines stationed in different centres to cater to the needs of the members of the cooperatives.
The cooperative sector has a dominant market share in milk and milk products, and has maintained it even in the face of competition from the private sector. The model of cooperatives in the dairy sector later expanded into other sectors, namely, the production and marketing of oilseeds, providing agricultural inputs and credit to farmers, and lately, production and marketing of cotton, fruits and salt.
A noteworthy impact of these cooperatives, as noted by Kurien (1997), is the introduction of modern systems of sanitation and health care in the villages. As economically viable institutions, these cooperatives also often support other tasks of rural development. The villages studied in this paper regularly spend part of their profits to support village schools and childcare centres and for investing in public infrastructure.
While all these are remarkable achievements in themselves, scholarly studies have pointed out that certain sections of rural poor have not been able to participate in these institutions. In particular, it has been pointed out that Patels, a caste of large landowners in rural Gujarat, have dominated the cooperatives. On the other hand, most landless and scheduled caste households have not benefited from these cooperatives.2
The two cooperatives studied in the paper are Piparia Women’s Milk Cooperative Dairy in Kheda district and Malan Milk Producers’ Cooperative Dairy in Banaskantha district. Field work for this paper was done in July 1999. The field work involved interviewing the officebearers of the cooperatives and about 40 households in the two villages. Although the selection of respondents did not follow a formal statistical procedure, specific care was taken to interview households from every caste and community, and from different socio-economic strata in the villages. These respondents were asked detailed questions on the socio-economic conditions of their household, extent and nature of their participation in dairy cooperatives, and in cases of households that did not participate in these institutions, the reasons for not participating.
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Piparia is a village of about 135 households in Matar Taluka in Kheda.
Piparia Women’s Milk Cooperative Dairy was started in 1996. As of
July 1999, there were 148 members of the cooperative. All members are
women and the Dairy is entirely managed by them. Twice a day a truck from
Amul comes to take away the milk to Khetraj, about 30 kms from Piparia,
where Amul has a cheese processing plant. The Dairy does not have a building
of its own and is housed in part of a temple building. Being a part of
the integrated cooperative network in the district, the Dairy also sells
cattle-feed and provides veterinary and artificial insemination services.
The veterinary services are provided by Amul, and could be availed easily
and at a very low cost Table 1 shows participation of different caste groups in the Piparia Dairy. In terms of membership, the Dairy is clearly multi-caste with participation from all socio-economic levels in the village; however, the "scheduled" castes are still proportionately under-represented as compared with the upper castes. Membership in cooperatives, however, is a limited and possibly misleading indicator of participation. About 97 of the 148 members of the Dairy - most of them from scheduled/backward castes and scheduled tribes - did not supply milk to the Dairy. These included households that no longer raised cattle as well as the cattle-owning households that did not supply milk to Piparia Dairy. The de facto participation of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes, therefore, is much less than their representation in the membership. Land relations in Piparia, as in most parts of Gujarat, are inextricably related to the caste relations. These two - caste and land relations - together are the most important determinants of participation of different sections of village society in the Piparia Dairy. Ownership of cattle varies greatly across castes. About 39 households belonging to the Patel caste own most and the best cattle in the village. A large number of poor belonging to the scheduled castes and tribes and some backward castes do not possess any milch cattle. Households belonging to the Senva and Vaghri castes are among the poorest in the village. Almost all these households are landless and work as manual workers3. Only two of the 14 households belonging to Senva scheduled caste and two of 16 households belonging to Vaghri scheduled tribe own cattle. A few households among other castes, including small landowners like Thakur and Rathod households and agricultural labourers like Chauhan, own one or two cattle4. |
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India |
Mozambique |
Mexico |
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Communities & castes |
School-community committee |
Religious traditions & festivals |
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A scheduled tribe community that owns significant number of cattle is the community of Rabari households. Animal husbandry and selling milk is the traditional occupation of the Rabari caste and it continues to be their main occupation. Most of the households have no land and some members of the households also work as manual agricultural workers. Many women from these households are members in the Piparia Dairy and most of these households supply milk to the Piparia Dairy. Caste barriers, however, are not limited to differences in ownership of cattle. Even some of the cattle-owning households belonging to the scheduled castes and backward castes do not supply milk to the Piparia Dairy. Instead, these households supply milk to a cooperative dairy in Koshiyal, a neighbouring village. Koshiyal Dairy is well represented by the members from the Thakur caste, a caste of peasants owning small and medium landholdings. The Piparia Dairy, on the other hand, had been initiated by a group of Patel households and they continue to dominate its affairs. These households are the largest landowners and biggest employers of labour in the village. They own many cattle and have more than one member in the Dairy from each household. The major complaint of cattle-owning households that did not supply milk to the Piparia Dairy was the irregularity in measurement of fat and pricing of milk in the Dairy. Under the regulations of Amul and other district cooperatives in Gujarat, milk is priced on the basis of fat content of the milk. Every village dairy has an electronic instrument to measure fat content of the milk and a price list for different levels of fat content. Measuring fat requires taking a small sample from the milk supplied by the producer and its testing in the instrument, a procedure that takes a few seconds for every sample. However, instead of measuring the fat content at the time of delivery, it is measured in Piparia Dairy only after all the milk has been collected. The sellers are informed of the fat content and the price when they come to supply the milk next time. Most scheduled caste residents of Piparia who sold milk to the Koshiyal Dairy complained of malpractices in the measurement of fat content5. |
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Malan is a large village having a population of about 8 000 persons. Malan Milk Producers’ Cooperative Dairy was established in 1968 and is linked to Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Dairy (Banas Dairy). The Malan Dairy buys milk from local producers and sells it to Banas Dairy. As of 1997, there were 1 065 members in the cooperative of which 861 were men and 204 were women. Of these, between 700 and 800 members supply a total of about 5 000 litres of milk to the Dairy everyday. Apart from trading in milk, the dairy sells cattle-feed and ghee, and also acts as a guarantor for the members who take loans for buying cattle. A van equipped with veterinary supplies and medicines had been permanently stationed in Malan by the Banas Dairy for providing services in Malan and neighbouring villages. These services - including the vet’s visit and the medicines - are available at the cost of Rs. 60 per visit. To become a member of the Dairy it is required that the person owns at least one head of milch cattle and supply milk to the Dairy regularly for the initial 90 days. Table 2 shows that over 46 percent of the members of the Malan Dairy came from20 percent upper caste Hindu households of the village. The most important of these (41.7 per cent) were the members belonging to Patel caste. These households also own most of the land in the village. On the other hand, only 5.4 percent of the Dairy members came from the over 20 percent of households belonging to the scheduled castes. Being in a relatively dry agro-climatic zone, the most important constraint to ownership of cattle in Malan is access to fodder. Agricultural land in Malan is either rainfed or irrigated by groundwater. The groundwater table is very low and even groundwater irrigated land cannot be sown the whole year round. As a result, obtaining fodder is much more difficult in Malan than in Piparia. Access to fodder is closely linked to access to land, and in turn, to caste relations6. Ownership of land in Malan is highly concentrated and sharecropping, mostly concealed, is widely prevalent7. There are five communities in Malan that own most of the livestock in the village. First of these, and the largest producers of milk in the village, are the households belonging to the Patel caste. According to various informants questioned by the author, 16 percent of the households belonging to the Patel caste own anywhere between 65 percent and 90 percent of the village land. As owners of a large amount of land, they have plenty of fodder and usually own a number of milch cattle. |
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By Group |
Districts |
Overall |
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Banaskantha |
Kheda |
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1. Land+Irrigation+Livestock |
2 165.94 |
2 571.63 |
2 374.27 |
UD$57.9 |
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2. Land+Irrigation+No Livestock |
1 938.67 |
2 394.40 |
2 145.82 |
US$52.3 |
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3. Land+Unirrigated+Livestock |
1 781.12 |
1 839.00 |
1 803.38 |
US$44.0 |
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4. Land+Unirrigated+No Livestock |
1 016.25 |
1 331.67 |
1151.43 |
US$28.1 |
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5. Landless/Very Marginal |
1 405.38 |
1 373.92 |
1 388.28 |
US$33.9 |
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6. Service Class |
3 243.67 |
3 238.00 |
3 240.83 |
US$79.0 |
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Overall |
1 885.52 |
1 968.03 |
1 926.77 |
US$47.0 |
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Note: Exchange Rate (1997/98): US Dollar 1=Rs. 41 The second group that owns cattle is a community of about 50 households belonging to the Rajput caste. These are small to medium landowners and obtain fodder from their own fields. The third group that owns livestock comprises about 250 of the 400 households belonging to the Thakur caste (grouped under "other backward castes" in Table 2). These households typically work as sharecroppers on lands owned by Patel households. Under the prevalent sharecropping contracts in the village, the owner of the land provides all the material inputs while the sharecroppers provide all the labour. Sharecroppers also bear the cost of any labour that is hired. Three-fourths of the produce, including the grain and fodder, are taken by the landlord while the sharecropper gets only one fourth of the produce8. These sharecroppers, because of being able to access at least part of the fodder grown on the fields they cultivate, are able to rear livestock9. The fourth group is a community of about 100 Muslim households. These households own small parcels of land. Some of them also work as sharecroppers. The fifth group that owns livestock are households belonging to the caste Nai. The primary occupation of members of these households is to work as barbers. Households belonging to this caste follow common rules decided among the barbers in about 180 villages in the area. Under these rules the upper caste patrons are divided among all barbers and each barber provides services to only specific patrons. These services also include certain religious rituals to be performed by a barber. In exchange for these services, the patrons are required to provide a certain amount of grain and fodder to the barbers. It is through this tradition that this community of barbers gains access to fodder and is thus able to rear livestock. Apart from these five communities, the rest of the households in the village own almost no milch cattle10. Malan also had two private traders of milk and milk products. While most households sell milk to the Cooperative Dairy, and the private traders rely primarily on milk produced by their own cattle, there are a few households that occasionally sell milk to these traders. This was attributed to the fact that the payments for the milk sold to the Dairy are made only once a week while the traders pay on the spot in cash (though a lower price). Poor households, including some tribal households from nearby villages, occasionally sell milk to the traders because of immediate requirement of money despite the fact that traders buy milk at a lower price. |
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Table 1: Participation of different caste groups in Piparia Women’s Milk Cooperative Dairy and caste-wise composition of households in Piparia
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Caste group |
Membership in dairy* |
Households in the village** |
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Numbers of persons |
Percent |
Number |
Percent |
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Scheduled caste |
4 |
2.7 |
4 |
11.1 |
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Scheduled tribes |
29 |
19.6 |
29 |
21.5 |
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Other backward castes |
53 |
35.8 |
53 |
34.8 |
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Upper caste Hindus |
62 |
41.9 |
62 |
32.6 |
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All |
148 |
100.0 |
148 |
100.0 |
Source: Based on information collected by the country team, India.
* Collected from Piparia Women’s Milk Cooperative
** Collected from Gram Panchayat, Piparia
Widespread illiteracy and lack of democracy in the functioning of the cooperatives are also important barriers to wider and more active participation of the poor in the dairy cooperatives.
Illiteracy is widespread among the scheduled castes and tribes, and in particular among women, in both the villages. According to the latest population census (for 1991), only 4.1 percent of the scheduled tribe women in the villages of Palanpur Taluka were literate. Among scheduled caste women, the proportion of literates was less than 30 percent.
Widespread illiteracy among these sections of the population is an important barrier that prevents their active participation in the affairs of the dairies. Illiterate members are not considered for membership of the managing committee11. Moreover, they often find themselves at a loss to understand the proceedings of the general body meetings. Many scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households interviewed for this study reported this to be the reason for their not attending the general body meetings.
It is important to point out that in neither of the two dairies is the managing committee elected. The members of these committees are nominated in thinly attended general body meetings convened once a year. The general body meeting of Piparia Dairy in 1998 was attended by only 35 out of 148 members. The general body meeting of Malan Dairy in 1998 was attended by only 93 out of 1 065 members. According to a member of the managing committee of Malan Dairy, female members do not attend the general body meetings of the Dairy.
In both the cooperatives, the posts of the chairperson and the secretary were held by members belonging to Patel caste. Four of nine members of the managing committee in Piparia and six of eight members in Malan belong to the Patel caste. All the members in the managing committee of the Malan dairy were men.
Certain practices explicitly deny active participation in the cooperative to the poor. For example, only those members who supplied at least 700 litres of milk in the previous year and provided milk continuously for 180 days were eligible to become members of the managing committee in the Malan Dairy. In Piparia, agricultural labourers are not selected for the managing committee on the pretext that they are unable to attend the meetings because of being engaged in the fields at the time of peak labour demand.
The paper argues that inequality in ownership of land and caste relations are the greatest obstacles to the participation of poor households in the two dairy cooperatives studied. Land and caste relations are central to the local political and power relations in rural Gujarat. There are various ways in which access to land and position in the caste hierarchy determine the possibilities of participation in the cooperatives. In addition, an important feature of rural society that prevents the poor from actively participating in the cooperatives is widespread illiteracy among the scheduled castes and tribes and women. The lack of awareness and skewed power relations have contained any demand from below for democratizing the functioning of the cooperatives.
The two case studies described in the paper indicate that public interventions directed towards breaking caste barriers, removing disparities in ownership of land and providing mass education would go a long way in empowerment of the rural poor in Gujarat and in enabling them to participate actively in these income generating institutions. There is also an immediate need for taking steps for introducing more democratic functioning in the cooperatives.
Endnotes:
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1 |
Prepared by Dr. Vikas Rawal, as a Young Professional with SDAR/FAO. The opinions expressed in this paper are of the author alone and not of FAO. I am thankful to Kirsten Appendini, Robin Marsh, Monique Nuijten, Anirudh Krishna and Vasant Gandhi for comments. I am also thankful to Vasant Gandhi and Aruna Parmar for providing me the information on cooperatives collected by the IIM country team for the FAO project and for introducing me to the villages. |
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2 |
In a study of a village cooperative in Kheda district, Patel (1988) found that over 75 percent of the households owning land were members of the cooperatives while only about 11 percent of the landless labourer households were members. In a study of another cooperative in Kheda district, Bavisker (1988) found that 88 percent of the big landowners (households having more than 5.71 acres of ownership holding) produced milk; corresponding proportion for landless households was only 30 percent. Also see George (1994) and Rajaram (1996). |
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3 |
Most houses in the settlement of Vaghri households are constructed in mud and thatch. In the monsoons, when the author visited the villages, their settlement was completely flooded and many houses had been damaged. There is no electricity in the settlement. The primary occupation of these households is manual labour. They are the only community of resident labourers who work primarily on low wage seasonal labour contracts for agricultural work. |
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4 |
Most of the cattle owned by households belonging to scheduled and backward castes are procured through an arrangement under which a household takes a milch calf from a cattle owning (usually Patel) household for tending. When the calf grows up, the household that gave the calf and the household that tended it have an equal share in the value of the calf. Either one of them can buy the grown up cattle by paying the other household its share in the value of the cattle. |
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5 |
The respondents interviewed by the author argued that the fat content in their milk was regularly under-reported in the Piparia Dairy in comparison with the Koshiyal Dairy. |
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6 |
In Piparia, the landless households that own cattle reported that they are able to obtain fodder either from the landowners as part of wages or were able to cut it from the sides of the fields. It is only in the monsoon season (July-August) that obtaining fodder becomes difficult for these landless households. Access to fodder is much more restricted in Malan. It is not possible to obtain fodder from land belonging to other people or from the village common land. Access to fodder is such a severe constraint in Malan that unlike the villages in Kheda, livestock is sheltered in the fields where fodder is grown and never in the homestead area of the village. |
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7 |
Sharecropping is concealed to circumvent tenancy law of the State. |
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8 |
Most commonly, because of lack of enough funds, the sharecroppers take credit from the landlord for payment of wages of hired labourers. This credit is repaid from the sharecroppers' share in the produce. |
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9 |
It may be noted that people belonging to scheduled tribes from the nearby villages also cultivate land on sharecropping contracts in Malan. An important difference in the sharecropping contracts between Patel landlords and tribal sharecroppers in comparison with the sharecropping contracts between Patel landlords and Thakur sharecroppers is that while both get one fourth share in the grain produced, the tribal sharecroppers are not given fodder. |
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10 |
Some of the households belonging to Tirbhanga scheduled caste own draught camels and some households belonging to Vaghri scheduled tribe own goats. |
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11 |
In 1991, only 38.6 percent of women in Gujarat were literate; the corresponding proportion for men was 66.8 percent. |
References:
Kurien, V. (1997), "The AMUL Dairy Cooperatives: Putting the Means of Development into the Hands of Small Producers in India", in Krishna, Anirudh, Uphoff, Norman and Esman, Milton J. (Ed.), Reasons for Hope: Instructive Experiments in Rural Development, Kumarian Press, West Hartford.
Shiyani, R. L. (1996), "An Economic Inquiry into the Impact of Dairy Co-operatives on Milk Production", Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 51(3), Jul-Sep
Bavisker, B. S. (1988), "Dairy Cooperatives and Rural Development in Gujarat", in Attwood, D. W. and Baviskar, B. S. (eds.) (1988), Who Shares? Cooperatives and Rural Development, Oxford University Press, Delhi.
Rajaram, N. (1996), "The Impact of Liberalisation on Village Milk Cooperatives: A Sociological Study of Kheda District", in Rajagopalan (ed.)., Rediscovering Cooperation: Volume 3, Cooperatives in the Emerging Context, Institute of Rural Management, Anand.
Patel, A. S. (1988), "Cooperative Dairying and Rural Development: A Case Study of AMUL", in Attwood, D. W. and Baviskar, B. S. (eds.) (1988), Who Shares? Cooperatives and Rural Development, Oxford University Press, Delhi.
George, Shanti (1994), The Matter of People: Cooperative Dairying in India and Zimbabwe, Oxford University Press, Delhi.
