Lucknow, May 16, 2019: HCL Samuday, an ambitious project of HCL Foundation working towards creating a scalable and replicable development model for rural India, announced its partnership with Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited, also known as Banas Dairy, Asia’s largest milk aggregator (Member of the Union of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation selling its milk and milk products under the brand name of AMUL), to ensure income augmentation of dairy farmers. The dairy intervention implemented by Samuday over the last two years, as part of its efforts to improve rural livelihood opportunities will be supported and taken forward by Banas Dairy, further expanding the organisation’s reach in Uttar Pradesh.
HCL Samuday is currently working in three blocks of Hardoi district – Kachhauna, Behender and Kothawan – to develop these areas on six parameters which include agriculture, education, health, infrastructure, livelihood, and WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene).In order to help economically marginalized families, Samuday has implemented several innovative solutions that help households augment their income through allied agricultural practices. Samuday has been working in 175 villages to improve the quality of milk, increase milk production, ensure proper quality assessment through automatic milk collection units at village level and establishing reliable transportation channels to milk processing units. Besides this, the intervention has worked towards improving animal management practices and ensuring availability of preventive healthcare services for cattle and livestock. This initiative has directly helped 9025 farmers to generate a total revenue of Rs.26.71 Crore between February 2017 and March 2019.
The partnership between HCL Samuday and Banas Dairy is initially for a period of three years (commencing in May 2019) and will be subject to agreement between two organisations for further extension.
Key highlights:
- Banas Dairy will create village level Farmers’ Association which will be responsible for milk collection from individual farmers.
- Banas Dairy will be responsible for the transportation and marketing of the milk.
- As a cooperative organisation, Banas Dairy works towards transferring the profits of dairy business directly to the milk producers through the Farmers’ Association.
- Banas Dairy will also ensure timely and fair payment to farmers, maintain high standards of accuracy in weighing and testing of milk and ensure transparency at each step of the transaction in Kachauna, Kothawa and Bahendar in Hardoi district.
- Samuday will continue to support farmers through capacity building, trainings, breed improvement.
- Individuals from the local community will also be trained by Samudayas para-vets to provide doorstep first-aid medical services for livestock.
- In the long run, this partnership will ensure a sustained and significant increase in income of the farmers.
Speaking on the occasion, Navpreet Kaur, Director, HCL Samuday said, “Uttar Pradesh is the largest producer of milk in the country, contributing 17 percent to India’s total milk production. However, the dairy sector remains largely unstructured where small and marginal farmers, who produce minor quantities of surplus milk, have no proper channels to sell that milk at fair market prices. The quality of milk often gets compromised with rampant adulteration. HCL Samuday has been working towards implementing processes that would ensure that profits of milk marketing go to the dairy farmers directly instead of the middlemen. This partnership is a true success for HCL Samuday as it proves that the concept we incubated is sustainable as a business, and can be replicated in other parts of the State or the larger country. We are thrilled to partner with Banas Dairy, who are largest supplier of milk to Amul.”
Kamrajbhai R. Chaudhary, Managing Director, Banas Dairy said, “We were very keen to expand our operations in Uttar Pradesh and the model Samuday has implemented is praiseworthy. We are happy to partner with HCL Samuday. Banas Dairy is against exploitation and protects the interest of farmers by ensuring that farmers receive better remuneration. Uttar Pradesh is a buffalo-dominant belt and private players pay less price to farmers by applying various pricing policies. Banas Dairy’s farmer-centric pricing policy will compel private entities to pay comparatively higher prices for milk. Banas Dairy is extremely particular about implementing accurate weighing and testing mechanisms that will ensure transparency and quality control. We will also provide good quality feed to dairy farmers to ensure that the quality of milk being produced improves significantly. Till date, we have not provided these services to farmers outside Gujarat, which is our home State, but I believe this project has great potential and we are excited to witness the results.”