Dr Verghese Kurien
| Verghese Kurien | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
26 November 1921 ( 'National Milk Day') Calicut, (Madras Presidency) (now Kozhikode, Kerala, India) |
| Died | 9 September 2012 (aged 90) Nadiad, Gujarat, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Co-founder, Amul Founder NDDB and IRMA |
| Known for | White revolution in India |
| Awards |
World Food Prize (1989) Order of Agricultural Merit (1997) Padma Vibhushan (1999) Padma Bhushan (1966) Padma Shri (1965) Ramon Magsaysay Award (1963) |
| Website | www |
Verghese Kurien (26 November 1921 – 9 September 2012) known as the Father of the White Revolution in India was a social entrepreneur whose "billion-litre idea", Operation Flood - the world's largest agricultural dairy development programme, made dairy farming India's largest self-sustaining industry, with benefits of - employment, incomes, credit, riddance of debt dependence, nutrition, education, health, gender parity & empowerment, breakdown of caste barriers and grassroots democracy & leadership. It made India the world's largest milk producer, surpassing the United States of America by 1998, with about 17 percent of global output in 2010–11, from a milk-deficient nation, which doubled milk available per person and increased milk output four-fold, in 30 years,
He pioneered the "Anand Pattern" of dairy cooperatives and later, he found the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) in 1965, to replicate this pattern nationwide. It was based on Amul, his standalone cooperative then, today India's largest food brand, where three-fourths of the price paid by consumers went to dairy farmers who controlled marketing, procurement and processing of milk as the cooperative's owners, while hiring professionals for their skills and inducting technology, in managing it. A key invention at Amul, the world's first, was the production of milk powder from the abundant buffalo-milk, instead of from the conventional cow-milk, short in supply in India. He thus, organised dairy farmers in the villages and linked them directly to consumers in the market by eliminating middlemen, ensuring them a steady and a regular income even during the lean season and a competitive price to the consumer in the large market of the reachable Bombay city. This helped him capture a commanding share of the market there which got him wide attention.
He was shrewd to use the clout resulting from the recognition of this venture to negotiate governmental support and international help, all on terms set by him, while steadfastly staving off political or bureaucratic interference in the building of his cooperatives to national scale and the founding of institutions.
He also made India self-sufficient in edible oils, taking on a powerful, entrenched and violently resistant oil supplying lobby. He is regarded as one of the greatest proponents of the cooperative movement in the world, which emphasises production by the masses over mass-production, with his work having lifted millions out of poverty in India and outside.
He was born on 26 November 1921 at Calicut, Madras Presidency (now Kozhikode, Kerala) into a Syrian Christian family. He schooled at Diamond Jubilee Higher Secondary School in Gobichettipalayam while his father worked as a civil surgeon at the government hospital there. He joined Loyola College, Madras at the age of 14, graduating in physics in 1940, and then got a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Madras. After that, he joined the Tata Steel Technical Institute, Jamshedpur from where he graduated in 1946, but soon found himself wanting to get away from the hangers-on and yesmen of his uncle, who was the chief there.
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Wikipedia