Lead India winner's dream taking shape in a dairy farm

SONARI (SITAPUR): The most common sight in this village is of mud-baked thatched huts, semi-clad children and the poor in tattered clothes. But Sonari, in UP's Sitapur district, inhabited mostly by poor marginal farmers is aspiring to become the hub of a revolution which the state has never witnessed before: Cooperative dairy farming.
Brainchild of Times of India's Lead India campaign winner R K Misra, the movement is being pushed further on by the Times Foundation and Sitapur district administration."It was a dream which is now finally taking shape," says Misra.
Supported by a grant of Rs 50 lakh from the Times Foundation after he won the Lead India campaign, Misra has already got in place the infrastructure ��� a set of tin sheds constructed over 1 acre land ��� and the cooperative society registered. The district administration, too, has chipped in and laid roads leading to the sheds. The administration will also get a 2,000-litre bulk-milk chilling plant installed at the site for storage before the milk is routed into open market.
But Misra knows the job will still not be that easy. "The question is how to motivate the poor to become enterprising. We hope the plan will work once they see it happening," he says, claiming the project would become operational by mid-December.
The plan: The cooperative society will have members enrolled for a life-membership fee of just Rs 55. Once enrolled, the members can take loans from Allahabad Bank (with which the society has entered into an agreement) to buy cattle.
"The idea is to enable these farmers to have an alternative source of earning. What better than a dairy, which can be operational all the year round," says Misra. However, it will be up to the farmers whether they milk their cattle at home or bring them to the society.
This scheme will ensure farmers have day-to-day earnings by selling milk to the society and also enable them to repay their bank loans, while the society would route the milk into open market with the help of Pradeshik Cooperative Dairy Federation (PCDF) ��� and, no middlemen involved. The benefits go straight into the pockets of the farmers.
"The market is good ��� only a mechanism needs to be in place. Of course, people have to be motivated," says Manoj Chandra Sahi, GM of Sitapur dairy unit of PCDF. He says PCDF will lift all the society's milk at an agreed price. The movement has already found takers ��� 50 farmers from around nine villages surrounding Sonari have joined it.