White Revolution

White Revolution

Subject – Agriculture

Context – November 26, 2021 was celebrated in Anand, Gujarat as the 100th birth anniversary of Verghese Kurien, the leader of India’s ‘white revolution’, which increased the incomes and the wealth of millions of cattle­-owning small farmers in India, many of them women.

Concept –

• Operation Flood, launched on 13 January 1970, was the world’s largest dairy development program and a landmark project of India’s National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
  • In July 1970 with technical assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the programme was launched as Operation Flood (OF).
• It transformed India from a milk-deficient nation into the world’s largest milk producer, surpassing the United States of America in 1998 with about 22.29 percent of global output in 2018.
• Within 30 years, it doubled the milk available per person in India and made dairy farming India’s largest self-sustainable rural employment generator.
• The process has since been termed as the “White Revolution“.
• If there was one technological breakthrough that revolutionized India’s organized dairy industry, it was the making of skim milk powder out of buffalo milk.
• The Anand Pattern Experiment at Amul, a dairy co-operative, was the engine behind the success of the program.
• Dr Verghese Kurien, the chairman and founder of Amul, was named the Chairman of NDDB by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri.
  • Dr Verghese Kurien is known as the father of the White Revolution in India.
  • Under him many important institutions were established like the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd and the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).
• The White Revolution was started by the NDDB in the 1970s and the bedrock of the revolution has been the village milk producers’ cooperatives.
• Currently, India is the world’s largest milk producer, with 22% of global production.

National Dairy Development Board (NDDB)

• The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is a statutory body set up by an Act of Parliament of India.
• It is under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Government of India.
• The main office is in Anand, Gujarat with regional offices throughout the country.
• The Board was created to finance, support and support producer-owned and controlled organisations. Its programmes and activities seek to strengthen farmer cooperatives and support national policies that are favourable to the growth of such institutions.
• Cooperative principles and cooperative strategies are fundamental to the board’s efforts.
• It was founded by Dr. Verghese Kurien.
• The National Dairy Development Board was created in 1965, fulfilling the desire of the then prime minister of India — the late Lal Bahadur Shastri to extend the success of the Kaira Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union (Amul) to other parts of India.