Verghese Kurien

'India's Place in the Sun Would Come from the Partnership between Wisdom of its Rural People and Skill of its Professionals'-Dr Verghese Kurien

This is the story of Dr. Verghese Kurien, a young engineer from Calicut who became a legend in his lifetime for building a cooperative movement that transformed the lives of poor farmers and made India self-reliant in milk production.

Kurien (26 November 1921 – 9 September 2012), one of the greatest proponents of the cooperative movement in the world was a renowned Indian social entrepreneur and is best known as the "Father of the White Revolution", for his 'billion-litre idea' Operation Flood. The operation took India from being a milk-deficient nation, to the largest milk producer in the world, surpassing the United States of America in 1998. In 2010-11, India contributed to 17 percent of global milk output. This meant that in a span of 3 decades, the availability of milk per person doubled. Dairy farming became India’s largest self-sustaining industry. He made the country self-sufficient in edible oils too later on,
taking head-on the powerful and entrenched oil supplying lobby.

Kurien established nearly 30 institutions and inspired number of cooperatives such as fishermen cooperatives, livestock rearing people cooperatives, Non Timber Forest Producers (NTFP) cooperatives, farmer’s cooperatives, thrift and credit cooperatives, agriculture unions, Self Help Groups (SHGs), federations etc. 

He spent almost 60 years in building and nurturing the poor people’s institutions. Kurien was an excellent social  entrepreneur, he developed a small and marginal dairy farmer’s enterprise, AMUL, as a successful people's enterprise model in the country.  He tried to replicate this model in vegetable and oil seeds products. He believed that cooperatives should do three things;  1. Eliminate middle men in the product value chain. 2. Ensure member’s control on procurement, processing and marketing. 3. Establish professionalism in cooperative function. He strived
for decades to inculcate these principles in AMUL. He believed that the political leaders and bureaucrats' involvement had ruined the cooperatives and he made continuos efforts against their involvement in cooperative management. He separated roles of cooperative board members and professionals in management. He believed that board members should limit themselves to policies making and leave the operational work to the professionals,  who will be accountable to the cooperative board. He practiced this method in AMUL.

Kurien was born in Calicut (Present Kozhikode), Kerala into a Syrian Christian family headed by his civil surgeon father.  He completed bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Madras. After his graduation, Kurien continued his studies by joining the Tata Iron and Steel Company Technical Institute in Jamshedpur, from where he graduated in 1946. Further bolstering his academic record, Kurien applied for a government funded Masters program at Michigan State University. The government supported Kurien to specialize in dairy engineering against his pleas to stay in the field of engineering. “What do you know about pasteurisation,” an interviewer asked the young man who had applied for a Government of India fellowship for a Masters in Engineering abroad. “Something to do with milk?” was the uncertain reply. The year was 1946. In his biography From Anand: The story of Verghese Kurien, M.V. Kamath recounts the story of how the youngster was selected to do a Masters in dairy engineering by a government committee that was impervious to his pleas that he be allowed to specialise in metallurgy instead.
As it turned out, Michigan State University did not have dairy engineering, and Verghese Kurien was able to do metallurgy and Physics. But when he came back to India in 1948, it was to a small and unknown village in Gujarat called Anand that he was sent, to work out his two-year bond at the Government creamery on a salary of Rs.600 per month. Hating his job because of lack of work, he waited impatiently for his fetters to loosen. Every month he used to send his complaint about lack of work and used to offer his resignation along with his work report. That did not happen. What it did was that V. Kurien, by the conjunction of politics, nationalism and professional challenge, decided to stay on. He would transform rural India. The timing of V Kurien’s arrival in Anand coincided with a difficult time for small, local dairy farmers who, without an efficient way to get their milk to market, were frequently exploited by larger dairies whose money, resources, and governmental connections allowed them unique benefits.   During that time there was only one dairy in the district of Anand and in Gujarat known as Polson Dairy which had been established in 1930. Polson Dairy was providing
superior quality dairy products to up-market consumers. However it was involved in the exploitation of Indian farmers by not providing sufficient amount to them for milk and also not allowing them to sell milk to other vendors.

Earlier in the decade, and in response to this, local farmers led by Tribhuvandas Patel had started the first dairy ooperative.  Initially it supplied milk and other dairy products without any formalized distribution network or any supply chain in place. The brand name AMUL had not been adopted at that time and it was called KDCMPUL (Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producer’s union Limited). It started initially with two dairy co-operative societies and 247 liters of milk only. Later, this led to the formation of AMUL on 14th December 1946 by Kurien.

But it was Kurien who would revolutionize the movement. Kurien’s unhappiness in his job and his intense loneliness had led him to reach out to the local farmers, including Patel. The earnest efforts of this cooperative and the crippling unfairness of the status quo inspired Kurien, and so when he was asked to help the cooperative expand he eagerly agreed. Straight away he insisted that they purchase a pasteurizing machine at the cost of 60,000 rupees. It was a large outlay but an investment that paid off for the small band. Milk could now be transported to Mumbai without it spoiling and the cooperative flourished.

It became the success story of the area, with local farmers from other districts travelling to learn from the cooperative and from Kurien himself. Amongst those who made the pilgrimage were a large number of landless labourers whose assets were few but often included a sole cow or buffalo. H.M Dalaya further aided the movement when he invented the process of turning buffalo milk into skim milk powder or condensed milk. This breakthrough allowed the cooperative to capitalize on the abundance of buffalo in India and to compete against multi-national corporations who relied solely on cow milk.

Kurien along with Mr. Tribhuvandas Patel started developing co-operatives in the Kheda district. These co-operative societies had the task of collecting milk from the village farmers twice a day. The payment was made to the farmers according to the fat content in the milk. Sufficient steps (such as standard fat measurement machine, surprise checks, educating farmers etc.) were taken to prevent malpractices and enhance the overall process.  These milk cans were then transferred to nearby Milk Chiller Unit on the same day. It was kept in storage there for few hours then they were transferred for the pasteurization and finally to the cooling and packaging unit. After that milk was delivered to the wholesale distributor and then to the retailers and finally to the consumer thus following two-level
distribution marketing channel.  The upstream supply chain was entirely designed by Dr. Kurien and Mr. Tribhuvandas Patel – as a result of which the co-operative mechanism kept getting better and by the end of 1960 AMUL had become a success story in Gujarat.

Mr. Kurien however wanted to give KDCMPUL a unique name which could be easily pronounced by all and which could also help in growth of the union. Suggestions were asked from various employees and farmers for an appropriate name. Soon, a quality control supervisor recommended the name “AMULya” which is derived from a Sanskrit word meaning priceless and implies unmatchable excellence. The name was modified to “AMUL” to make the union also a part of this name and hence brand AMUL- Anand Milk Union Limited, came into existence.

The vast success of AMUL, as the organization had been titled, put the area and Kurien on the governmental map. As the company grew into the biggest food brand in India, Kurien nevertheless remained in Anand, enjoying the prestige he maintained in the town, and veering away from national politics.

Operation Flood – The white Revolution: The year was 1964 when our Prime Minister Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri was invited to Anand to inaugurate the new cattle-feed plant of AMUL. He was supposed to return back by end of the day but after reaching Anand he insisted to stay there to learn about the success of the co-operatives. He visited almost all the co-operatives with Dr. Kurien and was impressed with the process with which AMUL was sourcing the milk from farmers and at the same time helping them to improve their economic condition. Later, he returned to Delhi and asked Dr. Kurien to replicate the AMUL pattern across the country. The combined effort resulted in
creation of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in the year 1965. Dr. Kurien took charge of NDDB and began the herculean task of replicating the overall pattern of the working at Anand to other parts of the country. By this time the demand for milk was growing at a faster rate than the supply of milk. India could have easily become the largest importer of milk like Sri Lanka were, had sufficient steps not been taken at that time by the Indian government and NDDB. Money was the biggest problem faced by NDDB during that period and was a critical resource needed to revolutionize the milk industry. To deal with it, NDDB tried to pursue World Bank for loans and
other grants with no conditions at all. When the President of World Bank came to India in 1969, Dr. Kurien told him –
“Give me money and forget about it”. A few days later, World Bank approved the loan for NDDB without even a single condition. This help was part of an operation, later known as Operation Flood.
In 1973, Kurien pioneered Operation Flood (or ‘the white revolution’), a move which would make India self-reliant in milk production. Kurien replicated the cooperatives and setup the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) in order to sell the combined produce of the disparate dairies under the same AMUL brand name both nationally and overseas. Operation Flood was subsequently implemented in India in three phases adding around 0.1 million co-operatives and 5 million milk producers.

Kurien recognized that the lack of professionalism as the main obstacle in cooperatives' development. He believed that professionals are the key players in cooperatives' development.  Initially he used to get professionals from competent institutions. But he faced problems in getting professionals to work for cooperatives. He started the Shiksha Dairy Institute to nurture professionals. Later it led to the establishment of IRMA – Institute of Rural Management Anand in 1979, to pass on the gained knowledge to future generations and to place rural India on the front map. Dr. Kurien also took several other measures such as developing milk powder, several varieties of dairy products, and development of vaccines along with an emphasis on the health of cattle etc.

As a result of these combined efforts, AMUL currently boasts of 15 million milk producers pouring their milk in 1,44,246 dairy co-operative societies across the country – a huge chain that has resulted in us being  the largest milk producing country today. Speaking about AMUL, the successful cooperative he founded, he explained the rationale behind Operation Flood – the strategy that made India self-reliant in milk production — and why it succeeded. He summarised it as follows:
“Over the last 20 years India’s milk production has tripled; it has increased from 20 million tonnes per annum to 60 million tonnes per annum. What is the value of one tonne of milk? At Rs.6 a litre, the value of the increased production of milk is Rs.2,400 crore. An additional Rs.2,400 crore goes yearly into the villages and this has been achieved in 20 years, thanks to Operation Flood I, II and III. The total investment was Rs.2,000 crore, and that was not from the state exchequer. The input-output ratio is staggering. The money also goes to those who own one or two buffaloes — the small farmer, the marginal farmer, the landless labourer. Dairying has become the largest rural employment scheme in this country. And the government has had very little to do with it, even though we are a
government institution.” Kurien always focused on the quality. He facilitated AMUL products to become synonymous with good quality. He was cautious in quality matters. The payment was fixed on the quality of the milk supplied. He strictly prohibited the malpractices in product processing. He made it a point to protect the consumers’ confidence in AMUL products and was committed to provide justice to the consumers for their investment on AMUL products. It led to AMUL
becoming the "taste of India". He was reluctant to increase the milk products’ prices. He was focused on exceeding the expectations of the AMUL consumers.

Kurien recognized the need for development of capacity building of cooperative leaders in cooperative management in milk procurement, quality assessment, processing, marketing, book keeping, auditing and monitoring the staff on a continuos basis. He found that members' control in cooperative management is a critical thing in sustainable development. He realized that political leaders and bureaucrats’ involvement spoilt the cooperatives, a number of unsuccessful cooperatives are live examples for this. Kurien never allowed the political leaders and bureaucrats' involvement in cooperative management.

By creating a self-sufficient dairy system in India, Kurien revolutionized rural India and dramatically improved the lives of the poor living in those areas. The cooperative system has given millions of landless labourers and small farmers a regular income, whilst stabilizing domestic milk prices in India, thus making hygienic milk easily available even amongst the poorest communities. 
In 1989 Kurien was awarded the World Food Prize for “his recognition that feeding the world’s citizens includes coordinating breakthroughs in production with effective management and distribution strategies.” Under Kurien’s model, India became the world’s biggest producer of milk, increasing production from 20 million metric tons in the 1960s to 120 million by 2011.

Kurien's dairy cooperative movement inspired all types of cooperatives in the country. It gave a new lease of life to the cooperative movement. AMUL became a live example to sustainable development through members’ controlled institutions by cooperative method. Many organizations started visiting AMUL to learn cooperative management. Also, delegates from countries like Russia, Great Britain, Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc. visited AMUL and requested Kurien to assist them in the development of dairy cooperatives in their countries.

Beyond the dairy cooperatives, Kurien also sought to apply the model to vegetable oil in the 1980s, an industry controlled once again by a small and powerful group of select families. Later in life, Kurien was a vocal critic of the liberalization of India which he saw as putting India at risk of unfair competition by large multinational companies, frequently speaking out during interviews on the issues of liberalization and globalization. When presented with the criticism that the cooperative movement could not replicate the successes of the Anand model in other parts of India, Mr. Kurien agreed but was unfazed by it, contesting it soundly. “Is the democratic form of government
successful in all parts of India? But the solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy. There can be no democracy in India unless you erect a plurality of democratic structures to underpin democracy, like the village cooperative which is a people’s institution.”

If in 2012, India is the largest producer of milk in the world, contributing six per cent to the national GDP and 26 percent to the agricultural GDP, it is Verghese Kurien, with his socialist vision and technology-led approach, which made it possible. He died in Nadiad, in western India, on the 9th of September 2012 aged 90. By the time of his death, he had been awarded 17 honourary doctorates and numerous national and international accolades. To give a short selection of them: nationally, the Padmashri (1965); Padmabhushan (1966); Krishi Ratna (1986); and the Padma
Vibhushan (1999). Outside India, it was the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1963); the “Wateler Peace Prize” Award of the Carnegie Foundation for the year 1986; the World Food Prize award for the year 1989; the “International Person of the year” by the World Dairy Expo, Wisconsin, U.S. (1993), the “Ordre du Merite Agricole” by the Government of France (in March 1997); and the Regional Award 2000 from the Asian Productivity Organization, Japan.
Kuriens’ professionalism, integrity and thrust for excellence in each and every thing he did were really remarkable. He transformed even problems into opportunities. He always strived to set standards in every work. He believed that giving more responsibilities was the key to developing people.  He had tremendous confidence on people’s capacities and cooperation and he believed that poverty reduction and people’s prosperity can be achieved through cooperatives. 

Kurien often said that "if cooperatives failed, strive to build cooperatives in a more professional way and if democracy failed, strive to achieve more democracy was the only way". He showed the world that an honest person can never be defeated. He was a role model, with his honesty and professionalism, in the development sector.