DAIRY CO-OPERATIVES AND MILK MARKETING IN INDIA: CONSTRAINTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Operation Flood and dairy co-operatives emerged in India as the largest rural employment scheme, enabling the modernization of the dairy sector to a level from where it can take off to meet not only the country'Â’s demand for milk and milk products but can also exploit global market opportunities. This study reviews the existing status of milk marketing and dairy co-operatives in India and provides recommendations to meet future challenges. The results of the study indicate that 80 percent of the milk produced by the rural producer is handled by an unorganized sector and the remaining 20 percent is handled by an organized sector. It is found that the dairy co-operatives play a vital role in alleviating rural poverty by augmenting rural milk production and marketing. Involvement of intermediaries; lack of bargaining power by the producers; and lack of infrastructure facilities for collection, storage, transportation, and processing are the major constraints which affect the prices received by producers in milk marketing. Milk quality, product development, infrastructure support development, and global marketing are found to be future challenges of IndiaÂ’'s milk marketing.