A Road To Progress

Context: Scope of cooperatives and unions as the pathway for women dairy farmers.

Case study: A study conducted on Women Dairy Cooperative Society (WDCS) members across Rajasthan showed that with income generated through dairying, 31% of women had converted their mud houses to cement structures, while 39% had constructed concrete sheds for their cattle.

Scope of cooperatives and unions

• Testament to success of dairy cooperatives model: Role of ‘White Revolution’ and Operation Flood in empowering small and marginal women dairy farmers.
• Training and support:
  • According to the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) about 93% of women farmers who receive training alongside financial support succeed in their ventures.
  • National Dairy Development Board (NDDB): Organises farmer’s orientation programmes under which women farmers are trained in scientific best practices on animal health, fodder quality, clean milk production, and accounts management
• Enhancing income: There are more than 1,90,000 dairy cooperative societies across the country, with approximately 6 million women members.
• Empowering rural women: Women-led cooperatives provides fertile ground for grooming women from rural areas for leadership positions.
• Addressing the information asymmetry through collective bargaining: Statistics indicate that small and marginal farmers have access to only 50-70% of the resources that large and medium farmers have.
• Promoting women-led companies: E.g. Shreeja Mahila Milk Producer Company, which was started with 24 women and now has more than 90,000 members, with an annual turnover of Rs 450 crore.