[Answered] The Amul model has been about both farmer empowerment and valuing professional management in organizations controlled by and working for producers. In light of the statement, discuss the significance of Amul model of cooperatives.

Cooperatives are organisations owned by members. They could be producers or consumers. These members may own shares. But, they value the cooperative mainly for the services provided by them. Amul was established to streamline the dairy farming in cooperative sector and protect the dairy farmers from the manipulative middlemen.

Significance of Amul model of cooperatives:

• Three-tiered structure: with the dairy cooperative societies at the village level federated under a milk union at the district level and a federation of member unions at the state level. So, a dairy farmer in a village in Gujarat with a herd size of two cows gets the opportunity to sell the milk in Delhi or Kolkata market.
• Professional management: The Amul organisational model, from the time of Verghese Kurien has been based on an elected board of directors operating through a chief executive and his team, which include marketing and finance professionals, project engineers, veterinarians, agronomists and nutritionists. So, their boards or managers are accountable to farmers.
• We need to implement this cooperative model to uplift sectors like agriculture and animal husbandry. The cooperative model will prove crucial in making agriculture self-reliant.
• The cooperative sector’s contribution in creating a $5-trillion economy will be immense as shown by the success of Amul, the world’s largest milk cooperative.
• Today, many farmers have turned to organic farming but they do not have any platform to sell the produce in India and the world.  Amul model can be useful beyond milk and dairy sectors.

Amul’s success with the cooperative model is definitely something the government can take notes from, especially as it embarks on laying a larger focus on cooperatives and its newly-formed ministry works to provide a policy framework to strengthen the cooperative movement in India.