Amul turnover crosses Rs 27k mark; farmer income up four times in 7 years

GCMMF's sales turnover increased 3.5 times, from Rs 8,005 cr in 2009-10 to Rs 27,043 cr in 2016-17

Farmers pouring milk for the country's largest dairy cooperative Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) which sells the Amul brand of dairy products have been a lucky lot. At a time when farmer protests are spreading like wildfire across different parts of the country, GCMMF claims that it has managed to grow the farmer income nearly four times in the last seven years, which is better than the national goal of doubling farmers' incomes in six years. 

During the last seven years, GCMMF's milk procurement prices to its farmer-members more than doubled from Rs 24.30 per litre for buffalo milk (Rs 337 per kg fat) in 2009-10 to Rs 49 per litre (Rs 680 per kg fat) in 2016-17. At the same time, the cooperative's milk procurement too doubled during the same period, from 9.09 million litres per day (mlpd) to 17.65 mlpd. 

"Since farmer income is a factor of per unit price (which has doubled) and the volumes (which too have doubled), the overall income has roughly grown four times or so. During this period we have also added more farmers to our network. However, that is not a huge number. The effective farmer income is around four times," said a senior official in GCMMF. 

Turnover of GCMMF has registered quantum growth of 238 per cent in last seven years, which implies a cumulative average growth rate (CAGR) of 19 per cent during this period. 

GCMMF’s sales turnover increased 3.5 times, from Rs 8,005 crore in 2009-10 to Rs. 27,043 crore in 2016-17. In 2015-16 it had clocked a turnover of Rs 22,972 crore. 

In the 43rd annual general meeting of GCMMF on Thursday, the cooperative stated that the group turnover of GCMMF and its constituent Member Unions, representing unduplicated turnover of all products sold under

Amul brand was Rs. 38,000 crores or $ 6 billion. 

"GCMMF aims to achieve a business turnover of Rs. 50,000 crore and become the largest FMCG organisation in India by 2020-21. In the long-term, Amul claims to establish itself as the largest dairy organisation in the world, rising up from its current ranking of thirteenth largest dairy organisation to number one," a statement here read. 

Jethabhai Patel, chairman, GCMMF, emphasised the fact that “During the last seven years, our milk procurement has witnessed a phenomenal increase of 96 per cent. This enormous growth was a result of the high milk procurement price paid to our farmer-members which has increased by 102 per cent in this period. This highly remunerative price has helped us retain the farmers’ interest in milk production. Better returns from dairying have motivated them to enhance their investments in increasing milk production.”

R S Sodhi, managing director, GCMMF said, "We have significantly enhanced our production capacities for major dairy

products during the last three years. During this period, we set up several new dairy plants including new dairy factories at Faridabad, Rohtak, Lucknow, Kanpur, Amreli and Kutch."