On 23rd June, 2005 the 31st Annual General Body Meeting of GCMMF held at Anand.

"A successful rural development programme must help rural people stay on voluntarily and profitably in the villages. Cooperative dairy development on the Amul Pattern has been instrumental in securing rural livelihoods in many parts of India through income generation, agricultural diversification, risk distribution, female empowerment and assured employment". With these words, Dr. V Kurien put forward the co-operative set up of Amul as one of the most viable rural development models available to the country.

Speaking at the 31st Annual General Body Meeting, Dr. Kurien not only presented the Annual Report (2004-05) of the co-operative behemoth, but also shared his worldview regarding the contribution of Amul to the cooperative movement in India, importance of brand power, rural employment generation, co-operative legislation and - last but not the least - the role played by the Institute of Rural Development, Anand (IRMA).

The year saw the GCMMF become the first Indian dairy products exporter to cross export earnings of Rs.100 Cr. During the year, GCMMF exported dairy products worth Rs.115 Cr. It achieved a remarkable growth of 12 percent in the consumer market for products like liquid milk in pouches, ice cream, UHT milk, butter and cheese. New generation products like Flavoured Milk, Fresh Cream and Buttermilk have shown higher than expected growth and are consequently going to comprise a major thrust area for the GCMMF in the future.

Highlighting the marketing miracle achieved by the dairy co-operative network of India "collecting milk from almost 12 million farmers, testing it, grading it, transporting it twice a day from 100,000 villages over 10000 routes to about 200 dairy plants, processing it, packing it and sending it to the market in almost 800 big and small towns every single day of the year", Dr. Kurien said that this achievement - though bereft of glamour - must not be underestimated. Further, to ensure that co-operatives keep firmly on the path of improvement, they need to be headed by professionals "armed with tenures long enough to achieve meaningful changes and to put in place comprehensive systems", he said.

Click here for Chairman's Speech