News: 
 
Google Doodle pays tribute to Verghese Kurien
 
Kurien’s ‘White Revolution’ gave India the identity of being the largest producer of milk in the world.
 
National Milk Day on Kurien’s birth anniversary
 
Introduction:
 

The programme adopted to increase the production of milk is known as White Revolution in India. The White Revolution in India occurred in 1970, when the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was established to organise the dairy development through the co-operative societies. Dr. Verghese Kuerin was the father of White Revolution in India. The dairy development programme through co-operative societies was first established in the state of Gujarat. The co-operative societies were most successful in the Anand District of Gujarat. The co-operative societies are owned and managed by the milk producers. These co-operatives apart from financial help also provide consultancy. The increase in milk production has also been termed as Operation Flood.
 
Operation Flood, launched in 1970 is a project of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), which was the world’s biggest dairy development program, that made India, from a milk-deficient nation to the world’s largest milk producer, surpassing the USA in 1998, with about 17 percent of global output in 2010–11, which in 30 years doubled milk available per person, and which made dairy farming India’s largest self-sustainable rural employment generator. It was launched to help farmers direct their own development, placing control of the resources they create in their own hands. All this was achieved not merely by mass production, but by production by the masses.
 
The Anand pattern experiment at Amul, a single, cooperative dairy, was the engine behind the success of the program. Verghese Kurien was made the chairman of NDDB by the then Prime Minister of India,Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri, and he was the chairman and founder of Amul as well. Kurien gave the necessary thrust using his professional management skills to the program, and is recognised as its architect.
 

Indian Dairy Industry:
 
Today, India is the centre of the global dairy industry. It is the largest producer of Milk in the world The Indian dairy industry is rapidly growing.
 
India had tremendous milk production in 40 years and has become the world’s largest milk-producing nation with a gross output of 84.6 million tons in 2001 and an annual output of 130 MT (2014-15). India is the largest producer of the milk in the world. It also has the largest milk-producing animal population of over 118 million. According to the National Dairy Development Board, demand for milk is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate or CAGR of 5% from 130 million tons in 2014 to 200 million tons in 2022. The move towards value added dairy products, offer higher margins than liquid milk for the Indian Milk Industry. According to a report by CARE Ratings, the share of value added products in the milk and milk derivatives segment in India is growing at around 25% every year and is expected to grow at the same rate until 2019-20. The Indian Dairy Industry has achieved this strength of a producer-owned and professionally-managed cooperative system, despite the facts that a majority of dairy farmers are illiterate and run small, marginal operations and for many farmers, selling milk is their sole source of income. More than 10 million dairy farmers belong to 96,000 local dairy cooperatives, who sell their products to one of 170 milk producers’ cooperative unions who in turn are supported by 15 state cooperative milk marketing federations.
 
The Indian Dairy Industry engages in the production and processing of milk & cream. This industry is involved in the manufacture of various dairy products like cheese, curd, yoghurt etc. The Indian Dairy Industry specializes in the procurement, production, processing, storage and distribution of dairy products. India as nation stands first in its share of dairy production in the international scenario and makes important contributions to the national economy.The Indian Diary industry provides gainful employment to a vast majority of the rural households. Given its high income elasticity, the demand for milk and dairy products is expected to grow rapidly.
 
India accounts for about 56 per cent of the cattle population of the world’s buffalo population and 14 per cent of the cattle population. It ranks first in respect of buffalo and second in respect of cattle population, second in goat population and third in respect of sheep in the world.