tailieunhanh - A Case Study of Milk Processing: The Idara-e-Kissan Cooperative

Livestock was reared mostly in rural areas while milk and milk products were consumed both in rural and urban areas. Because the marketable surplus of milk available with individual farmers was too small to justify a trip to the nearest town, it was sold to middlemen who often exploited the farmers by charging an amount in excess of the cost of their services, reducing farmers’ returns on the one hand and charging higher prices to the consumers on the other. The Plan document noted that some milk production also took place in ‘congested and insanitary pockets by gujar. | The Lahore Journal of Economics 13 1 Summer 2008 pp. 87-128 A Case Study of Milk Processing The Idara-e-Kissan Cooperative Khalid Riaz Abstract The paper focuses on Idara-e-Kissan a vertically integrated cooperative in the dairy sector which procures fresh milk processes it and uses the profits earned in urban milk product markets to provide development services to member farmers. The analysis suggests that compared to a control group of non-members the cooperative s members had 29 higher net returns per milk animal 9 more milk buffaloes 6 fewer dry buffaloes and they used three times more milk fat-enhancing cottonseed cake. The members had better access to animal vaccination artificial insemination and visits from livestock extension workers they were able to secure more animal treatments per year and reported greater satisfaction with service provision. The cooperative s successes were more modest in areas where the benefits of inputs and services provided were more public . livestock breed improvement and enhancing fodder productivity indicating that there is an important role for the government in supplying public goods such as livestock agriculture R D. JEL Classification L66 Q12 Q16 Q18 Keywords Milk Dairy Livestock Cooperative Pakistan I. Introduction Pakistan s agricultural development strategy has in the past focused heavily on crops and tended to ignore the other sub-sectors within agriculture including livestock. The motivation for this asymmetric emphasis came from the requirement to ensure food security by developing the capacity to produce enough grains for a large and growing population and the need to provide raw materials to the industrial sector that was heavily concentrated in cotton textiles. These efforts along with the availability of seed fertilizer technologies contributed to the onset of the Green Revolution which had a profound impact on the structure of Professor of Economics University of Sargodha Sargodha. 88 Khalid Riaz Pakistani .