It was summer of 2009 when I joined Dairy Board at their project in Khammam, Telangana and started working with Farmers’ to setup New Generation Cooperative. Given I did not know Telugu well, I was tasked with managing, engineering activities, supply chain, manpower planning, etc.
The term “Progressive Farmer” was new to me and it was very commonly used by officers and operators at milk collection centers. In their language Progressive Farmers were those, who used to supply not less than 30 to 40 liters of milk daily. These farmers used to travel from farthest corner of the catchment area or at times from outside the catchment area. As they were large suppliers, at times they used to stop supply of milk at Bulk Milk Collection centers and reason ascribed to it was hike required in milk prices as some or other pvt dairies increased the rates. At times they used to create ruckus at collection booths as well w.r.t. quality of machinery deployed, manpower issues etc. The root cause was rejection of thier milk on quality parameters or the rates that they are getting for the milk (due to dilution by addition of water). However unaware of the local language, I always tried understanding what farmers is saying from the tone of their language and facial expression or gesture.
For the benefit of people I would like to mention that milk price is linked to fat% in the milk with minimum acceptable range of other contents (minerals) called ‘solid not fat’ (SNF).
In 2010, I was transferred to Marathwada region in Maharashtra. It was a big respite to me as Marathi wasn’t a big challenge for me and I quickly started understanding/speaking it too. Given many farmers also knew Hindi, they were kind enough to choose language as per my comfort. However there was one similarity between Andhra and Maharashtra, this geography also had many Progressive Farmers. These farmers were very kind to us as they used to take all the pain to procure milk from a distant/outside hamlet/village from the catchment area and supply the same to dairy. They also used to maintain record of milk supplied by each farmer and payment due to them. Due to this we never set up a separate collection points in their villages.
As I knew the language by now and people were also comfortable in Hindi, I started conducting village meetings, which helped me in doing feasibility study for setting up Collection units in various villages. When incidents similar to Khammam started happening here as well, i.e. quality issues/ rejection of milk, no collection at center due to ruckus created by Progressive Farmers, I started investigating the issues. This is when I started understanding that these “Progressive Farmers” are in reality local milk dealers (aka Dudhiya). They just milk their cows/buffalo (If at all they have any) then collect milk from 10-20 small farmers and sell at collection point. They never let any pvt/govt dairy units enter in their villages by convincing them so that control of prices remains with them and they take away the healthy margins.
What happened afterwards just led to reduction in milk collection day by day and ultimately led to major setback to the dairy collection operation which took almost 4-5 year to recover.
I moved on in my career and joined a domestic Private Bank in Agribusiness vertical but learnt a lesson to be cautious from the so called Progressive Farmers.
If a true farmers’ cooperative is to be set, and the real farmer is to be benefited, then system has to ensure elimination of these Progressive Farmers from the supply chain rather than making them an integral part.