Dudhsagar Dairy: a cooperative miracle

Abstract

No other milk cooperative has been able to transform the rural economy of its district as fundamentally as did the Dudhsagar Dairy of Mehsana. While milk productivity and improvement of the quality of milch animal remained the primary goals of its organization, its policy towards women, and lately towards the poor of the district, has had a significant impact. Dudhsagar considered itself to be an offshoot of Amul, and like the latter it too was a product of the Indian national movement and social dynamism that was generated by it. Its founding father, Mansinhbhai Patel, came through the mill of the Indian freedom movement and, in the post-independence period, he turned his attention to the economic development of the district of Mehsana through the dairy industry. The district of Mehsana a few years ago was considered to be one of the backwaters of the state. And now in its dairy development, cattle improvement, and in the quality of its various programmes in general, it is likely to be a leader in the country.

We are grateful to the Journal of Developing Societies for kind permission to include portions of our papers ‘Dudhsagar Dairy: A Cooperative Miracle in an Arid Land’, Vol. II, 1986.