HCL Samuday, a project of HCL Foundation, has partnered with Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Limited to ensure income augmentation of dairy farmers of Hardoi District of Uttar Pradesh. The partnership is for a period of three years commencing in May 2019.
HCL Samuday is already 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).
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 organization’s reach in Uttar Pradesh.
Uttar Pradesh is the largest producer of milk, contributing 17% to country’s total milk production. State is a Buffalo dominant belt and private players pay less price to farmers by applying various pricing policies.
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. Also, quality of milk often gets compromised with rampant adulteration.
Navpreet Kaur, Director, HCL Samuday says, “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.”
In order to help economically marginalized families, Samuday (Community) 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 of Hardoi region to generate a total revenue of Rs. 26.71 Crore between February 2017 and March 2019.
Key highlights of the partnership:
- 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 organization, 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 Samuday as para-vets to provide door step first-aid medical services for livestock.
- In the long run, this partnership will ensure a sustained and significant increase in income of the farmers.
Kamrajbhai R. Chaudhary, Managing Director, Banas Dairy says “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.”
“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 that will 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.”, he further added.
Banaskantha District Cooperative Milk Producers known as Banas Dairy, Asia’s largest milk aggregator, also a Member of the Union of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation selling its milk and milk products under the brand name of AMUL.
