Page 49 - DMGT509_RURAL MARKETING

Rural Marketing

Notes Desai organised the meeting. It was Patel's vision to organise farmers to enable them to
gain control over the activities directly related to their livelihood, which were:
1. Production

2. Procurement
3. Marketing
Patel wanted that these activities should be under the direct control of the farmers but he
also wanted experts in each area to take full responsibility of these functions. This was to
ensure that no middlemen gained from the transactions, as so far, it was these middlemen
who had been exploiting the farmers for their personal gains.
June 1946 saw the formation of milk producing cooperatives in villages and the apex body
at the district level, the District Union, made these cooperatives its members. The first task
they got was to operate the government owned Bombay Milk Scheme.
In December 1946 the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd. was registered.
Soon the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation was set up as the sole marketers
of Amul Products.
As can be seen the name Amul comes from the Hindi word Amulya meaning Priceless!

Amul brand came about in 1955. Today Amul denotes a quality product that is available at
a reasonable price, all around the country and at the same top standards of quality and
service.
Special Mention
1. Amul brand name represents two million farmers from 10,000 village Dairy
Cooperative Farms throughout Gujarat.
2. Today, 173 million producers cooperative unions, 22 federations supplies Amul
products in 1000 cities in India.

3. Amul has the brand contract with both producers and the consumers.
Amul hopes to be playing a much bigger role in making India a land of our dreams.
Imagine going for a morning walk in the wee hours to a park, making a brief stopover and
coming back home with a belly-full of tasty flavoured milk and hot pizza topped with
cheese! Defeats the purpose of the walk, but may make you feel on top of the world. Now,
imagine the CEO of a dairy company saying, "Ours is not a food company, it is an IT
company in the food business. The most efficient way of building links between milk
producers and consumers so as to provide the best returns for both is through IT and
innovation." Or better still, imagine a cooperative movement that has delivered a 2746
crore turnover and has been planning actively to take it up to the 10000 crore mark. AMUL
INDIA limited, and its team of energetic professionals have planned to take on HUL in
ice-creams, Cadbury in chocolates, and NDDB in a verbal duel to uphold the cooperative
movement. On top of all this, they plan to set up a retailing network that would be the
toast of the town. Thankfully, the management flatly denied plans of launching kadhi and
raita.
B M Vyas, MD of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) had estimated
in late 2001 that the contribution from value added products like pizza, lassi and flavoured
milk would double from 15 per cent to 35 per cent. Of the entire milk procured, approximately

Contd...

44 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY