“The cooperative movement has made India Atmanirbhar. It has addressed the problem of nutrition successfully. India is already the biggest supplier of milk globally. However, the focus of cooperatives must now be on digitisation and improvement by reducing fodder costs and milk production costs. When quality improves and production costs are less, we can look at the export market,” he said during his address.

Shah also emphasised dairy cooperatives moving towards digitisation.

Echoing a similar view, Satish Marathe, director, of RBI, said, “India has emerged as the largest milk producer globally and our per capita consumption has gone up to 400g per person. Dairy cooperatives have a huge role to play here. It is important to understand that dairy farmers get 75% of realised value only from dairy cooperatives unlike around 40% of realisation in private dairies. Primary milk societies must be multipurpose societies that perform multiple functions.

Computerisation and digitisation is the next step.”

“The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has come up with a payment gateway, which will enable several rural institutions to go the digital way. This will further enable digitisation of financial services and encourage more financial inclusion of dairy cooperatives,” Marathe further added.