Dairy-based Livelihoods
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Rajasthan and the needs of the introduced
murrah breed brought rearers and animals
under heavy stress. The attention given
to various aspects of rearing by rearers in
Haryana such as shelter for the animal,
nutrients in feed, drinkingwater, bathing and
veterinary services, had resulted in high yield.
In Rajasthan, murrah faced great difficulty
in acclimatising to the rocky land and dry
weather. The buffaloes were left in the fields
for grazing and they stopped eating due to the
extreme weather change. Some animals also
dieddue to snake bites. People lost their hard-
earned saving that was spent to supplement
the DPIP grant to buy murrah buffaloes.
At the same time, cost of rearing went
up for the rearers due to the introduction
of various measures to improve rearing
practices. The major cost factor was nutri-
tion feed. Unlike in the past where cattle
used to graze on their own, for murrah,
rearers were required to buy animal feed
and mineral mixture from the market. The
rearers found it difficult to recover the cost
by selling milk in the local market. For
NDDB or SARAS (a brand of Rajasthan
Cooperative Dairy Federation Limited) to
open collection centres at a particular loca-
tion, availability of certain assured quantity
of milk was imperative. Individually rearers
were unable to give that assurance.
This clearly indicates the need of going
beyond just providingmilch animals to poor
households. The cost of rearing murrah was
far more than the return they got by selling
milk. It was strongly felt in the group meet-
ings as well as in the cluster meetings that
sale of milk by individuals would not yield
the potential of the rearing activity. Themilk
has to be aggregated andmarketed for better
price realisation.
Gradually, the need for collective action
brought two structures into being. One was
theMaitree Federation that promotes SHGs
and addresses the needs of these groups in
their linkages with banks, internal savings
and credit, and promotes dairy operations
under Maitree Dairy. Maitree Dairy initia-
tive got its membership from the Federation
membership. Many poor women also joined
the Federation once they entered the system
through the Dairy. Thus, the two peoples’
collectives are mutually reinforcing.
Maitree Dairy has been functional since
2006 but was registered as a producer com-
pany in 2013. As of 31 March 2015, it is
operational in 40 villages in two blocks with
five milk routes. 1,440 shareholders who are
pouring milk to the company have contrib-
uted a capital of
`
14 lakhs. There are 56milk
collection centres (at flush season the centres
will be 83). Three thousand and five hundred
are registered milk pourers. Since the com-
pany is owned by producers, its governance
is in the hands of the people who own it. The
company has a 10-member-elected board.
The Board of Directors has selected a chief
executive officer [CEO (a professional from
SRIJAN)] to help themrun the company and
oversee the day-to-day business.
Pushing the frontier
Dairy requires scale-of-milk production and
committed pouring, needs attention to both
quality and quantity of milk and requires a
strong institutional framework to ensure
linkages with viable market channels in
order to reap the potentials of the initiative.
This requires training and perspective build-
ing of the members and the elected leaders
of the federation on dairy management.
SRIJAN arranged for a few leaders to visit
the Mulukanoor Dairy in Andhra Pradesh
to give them an exposure. This visit changed
the world view of many potential leaders
who now felt motivated to build their ‘own’
dairy enterprise.
Federation leaders have to play different
roles at home, in the field, rearing of animals
and also entering into male’s domain of
milk marketing. Social stigma of entering
the men’s domain was the most challenging.
The success of the institution was linked to
the confidence and trust that the members
have in their institution and in its office
bearers. The Federation leaders worked
hard and improvised systems such as milk
payment once in five days to build trust.
