Success Story of a White Revolution – The Case of Gowardhan Dairy

By : Jayanti Kajale

Page No: 212-218

Abstract
The growth rate of agriculture and allied activities always lags behind that of other sectors and the overall economy. Allied activities such as dairy can promote growth rate in the primary sector and thus pull up the overall growth rate of the economy. A success story of Gowardhan dairy (the brand name for Parag Milk Foods Pvt. Ltd.), located in Manchar village, about 60 km from Pune in the state of Maharashtra has been highlighted in this paper. The company started its operations in a small way in 1993, but presently procures milk from 1.25 lakh farmers in the unorganized sector and operates with 1.2 million litres of milk per day. A wide range of milk products are produced with the help of fully automated plants. The company also brought about backward linkage in 2005 and has a herd of 3000 cows of the Holstein Friesian breed. The average milk yield per cow in this farm is 23 litres and the company hopes to increase it to 36 litres per day. Information Technology and scientific farm practices have made Gowardhan not just an ordinary cow shed but the success story of a white revolution.

Authors :
Sangeeta Shroff and Jayanti Kajale are Faculty Members, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (Deemed University), Pune.