After Uttar Pradesh Andhra Pradesh is the largest producer of milk and close on heels is Rajasthan with 11.25 million tonnes per annum and all this is possible due to State-wide enterprise of co-operatives for dairy development, the Andhra Pradesh Dairy Development Co-operative Federation (APDDCF).
The per capita milk availability in the State is 343 gm. and consumption has gone up from 105 gm in 1970 with the dairy industry targeting 15 million tonnes by 2020.
One million farmers were brought together for dairy development and had its roots in 1981, with a three-tier cooperative structure all registered as cooperative under 1964 Act, but later government desired to give greater autonomy leveraging the government assets base of the cooperatives, under the 1995 Act, but many of them went on to declare full autonomy like the one in Krishna district.
Guntur Samgam, Karimnagar and Visakhapatnam Visakha dairies went a step further and turned into Companies Act entities and all efforts by the government to reign in the cooperatives through G.O.s went in vain and a plea in the High Court negated that.
Now all of them enjoy the State assets and some of them are successfully running.
In Krishna district there are unions both in 1964 Act directly maintained and attached to APDDCF Ltd. and the largest union Krishna Union with its processing plant at Chittinagar (popularly known as Pala Factory or Kendram).
Gone are the days when people used to get milk directly from buffaloes in front of their houses. Krishnaveni Milk union attached to APDDCF Ltd. has its factory at Kankipadu with 20,000 litres procurement and sale capacity compared to 2 lakh litres sales capacity of Krishna Milk Union.
Shortages in procurement are met from the federation pool and the excess is given for processing – making powder or curd or other products to the pool.
About Rs.723 crore investment is proposed in bulk milk cooling units and there are plans to set up about 900 mini dairies with the emphasis being on the development of a supply chain.
Now the federation encourages providing 50 per cent subsidy on motorised chaff cutting machines to individuals and group of farmers.
