Amul: Unleashing the power of the many

Amul’s history began just a year before India’s birth as a free nation. And like its motherland, it too emerged out of protest. Angered by the exploitative actions of middlemen, farmers in a small town in Gujarat banded together to form a milk co-operative – the Kaira District Milk Producers Union. Its first diary was set up at Anand in Gujarat. The initials of the Anand Milk Union spawned – Amul – not just India’s most powerful dairy brand but an even more powerful symbol of co-operative action. Amul spawned the ‘White Revolution’ in India, powering the nation to the top of the world milk production league. Even more important, India is the world’s largest dairy market dominated by farmer-owned cooperatives – more than 16 million dairy farmers banded together in more than 223 district co-operatives. It has changed the nutritional map of India – 12 per cent of the protein intake of Indians comes from milk and milk products, more than pulses, meat, poultry or fish. The most successful farmer cooperative leadership model in the global food industry is something which arguably no other Indian enterprise is – a role model for the developing world.