Hassan/Bengaluru/Kalaburagi: Simply over every week in the past, a Kannada YouTube channel put out a video the place blindfolded members have been made to style Nandini and Amul ice lotions to make mild of the raging dairy controversy in Karnataka.
The 5 members then gave their preferences of the vanilla flavoured ice cream within the video which has almost 3 lakh views.
Right here is the catch. Amul and Nandini ice cream come from the identical factories, because the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF) sells half of its every day produce to the Gujarat-based cooperative. And the recipe is similar. Simply branded in a different way.
“We produce round 20,000 litre of ice cream per day (at Hassan plant) and round 50 per cent of the ice cream produced is for Amul. We co-pack it for Amul. They then promote it within the identify of Amul,” a senior government on the Hassan plant informed ThePrint.
Three such crops comply with the identical observe, however in various portions.
Travelling throughout Karnataka, Amul ads with photos of ice cream is a typical sight. The milk of selection, and availability, is Nandini.
The 2 manufacturers have coexisted in Karnataka — one of many larger milk producing states — for a very long time till it grew to become an election problem final December as Union minister Amit Shah stated that Amul and Nandini ought to be merged.
Amul’s advert asserting that it was going to promote milk in Bengaluru additional fuelled the opposition cost of a ‘sinister’ plot by the BJP to wipe out a model that’s an extension of the Kannada identification.
India’s largest cooperative Amul was recognized as a ‘North Indian model’ and given the spin that it was a part of the bigger ‘conspiracy’ by these imposing Hindi, Hindu and Hindutva.
However the problem has little resonance on the electoral battlefield.
“When huge leaders deal with public gatherings, they could have talked about this problem. However no candidate from any get together has raised this problem when interacting with us,” says Harish G.S., a farmer in Gendehalli of Beluru.
‘Milk is sort of a wage’
Farmer B.S. Nagaraju, 42, has 4 cows, three are Sindhi cross and one native species, which graze within the pristine pastures of S. Bommadihalli simply exterior Belur in Hassan district. Most of his land runs alongside the state freeway. Nagaraju grows espresso, pepper, paddy, jowar and ragi in his whole holding of round 12 acres.
His cows in whole give simply round 10 litres every day, relying on the season. Cows produce larger milk throughout the wet season, and that is almost halved throughout summer season and winter as availability of feed drops.
Three years in the past, a small dairy was arrange close to his house by KMF as a part of its cooperative growth, giving him the choice to promote the excess milk. “Earlier, we used a lot of the milk for our private utilization…making butter, ghee, buttermilk. However now for the reason that dairy got here up, I promote it there,” he says.
Minus the price of the feed, about Rs 2,400 for 2 baggage in a month, Nagaraju makes round Rs 10,000.
About 3 km away, Shankre Gowda, 42, purchased three cows ranging between Rs 20,000 and Rs 23,000 every. He has been a farmer for almost 30 years however milk brings in extra revenue. “It’s like a wage,” Gowda says.
His milk drop-off level is Birana Godu, about 1 km away from his house.
In drought-prone Karnataka, dairy farming offsets the losses from agriculture and gives an extra revenue for farming communities to assist themselves. Promoting to a non-public participant shouldn’t be seemed down upon so long as the worth is true, farmers say.
KMF additionally has an unlimited community in comparison with the restricted sources of personal gamers. “Non-public gamers procure at the next worth and promote additionally at the next worth,” the KMF official says.
However the comfort and strong community of KMF makes it a pressure to reckon with.
“There are round 40 homes in our village and we accumulate round 400-650 litre per day. Most individuals who drop milk right here keep inside 10 km,” Paramesh B.P. from Birana Godu village in Beluru says.
His spouse, a director of the native cooperative society, is the primary level particular person for all the operation that takes place between 6 am and seven am day by day.
It’s a every day affair however nothing to do with politics, milk producers right here say.
“Nandini is sweet and let it keep. What’s the level in altering that? However there is no such thing as a connection between milk and elections. All farmer care is about dropping milk to the dairy and returning. Nobody has even bothered to look past this,” Nagaraju says.
“We would like KMF and Nandini, but it surely has no reference to the best way we vote. It has not even been talked about by any candidate in our district, nor does it matter,” Paramesh says.
Producers must drop off the milk inside an hour of milking the cow and the van has to take it to the manufacturing facility for chilling inside three hours to keep up high quality because the milk must be of a sure temperature.
An evaluation is performed on spot to verify for SNF (Strong-Non-Fats) and fats content material that provides to the worth. The cooperative will get Rs 32.50 per litre and extra 20 paise for every level of fats and SNF content material.
As well as, the Karnataka authorities in 2008 introduced a Rs 2 incentive per litre for milk producers to offset the agrarian disaster. The ‘Protsaha Dhana’ (monetary incentive) was elevated subsequently and stands at Rs 5 for all those that promote to KMF.
The value paid to cooperatives varies from union to union and the price of retail milk is decided by the federal government in session with stakeholders and the KMF high physique.
At round 4 am subsequent day after assortment, the milk van drops off sachets of the product at varied companies on the street aspect throughout 1000’s of places within the state.
“We get round 100 litre of sachet milk every day and most of it’s bought,” Keerthi, the 25-year-old proprietor of 1 such retailer, says.
Additionally Learn: Karnataka dairy struggle will singe each Amul and Nandini by selling anti-competitive methods
‘We promote what public needs’
Within the metropolis of Kalaburagi, Nandini franchise house owners really feel that Amul’ entry available in the market is not going to hamper their prospects. In truth, they are saying that there’s a demand for Amul merchandise available in the market.
Mohammad Moinuddin, who runs a Nandini franchise, cites the instance of one other dairy model, Aarogya.
“When Aarogya got here to the market, it had one plus one supply on milk packets. Folks purchased in 1000’s. Thereafter, I paid Rs 80,000 deposit 80,000 to get the franchise. However my flip is but to return,” Moinuddin says. “Aarogya milk is thicker. Folks desire it for his or her kids. However provide is scarce.”
Moinuddin, nevertheless, says that the speed of Nandini merchandise is best. Whereas Nandini milk sells for Rs 40 a litre, Aarogya is priced at Rs 57, he says.
One other Nandini franchise proprietor Nandini Jamdar says that there is no such thing as a loss for the vendor or producer. “We are going to promote what the general public needs. If Amul is available in, we’ll have good gross sales,” she says.
Out of the 11.5 lakh litre collected from Hassan, Chikmagaluru and Kodagu districts, solely 2 lakh satchels are bought on this area underneath its jurisdiction, the KMF Hassan official informed The Print.
The remaining are bought to dairies in Hyderabad and Kerala the place the packaging is finished and bought as Model Nandini itself. The remaining milk is packaged in tetra packs (with longer shelf life) and bought to defence and retail. KMF additionally provides milk for presidency welfare programmes in varied states. The remaining is transformed into dairy merchandise like curd, buttermilk, butter, ice cream and milk powder.
Although KMF bought to different personal dairies previously, it stopped doing this a couple of years in the past, the official confirms.
‘Milk and politics’
Although there’s politics inside milk unions, it has not often change into an election problem.
In the course of the KR Pete bypoll in December 2019, the BJP registered its first victory in Mandya district, the Vokkaliga heartland.
Native residents declare that the BJP devised a method of delivering milk to houses within the morning and putting cash as bribe and a pamphlet of the candidate on the packet. When delivered, it was like taking the milk with a promise or “Halina Runa” as locals say.
The BJP has vehemently denied this allegation, however milk unions have a community that covers round 50 lakh folks throughout the state.
KMF chairman and BJP MLA Balachandra Jarkiholi says he suspects the opposition was raking up the Amul versus Nandini problem to misguide voters by floating the merger principle as almost 50 lakh folks have been concerned straight or not directly within the milk trade in Karnataka.
The Karnataka Cooperative Milk Producers Federation Ltd (KMF) has an unlimited community unfold over 22,000 villages with over 14,000 milk cooperatives, 14 milk unions and over 2.4 million milk producers. It purchases over 84 lakh kg of milk every day and makes funds in extra of Rs 17 crore as funds.
Kurien’s Midas contact
If the biographies of former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and the late Verghese Kurien are something to go by, then the latter did assist the expansion of the quintessentially, Kannada model.
Deve Gowda’s biographer Sugata Srinivasraju shares an fascinating anecdote in a web based interplay with @kkroundtables from the historical past books.
In 1996 when Deve Gowda was the PM, he met Kurian and sought his assist in enhancing the capabilities of Nandini. “Kurian says that there could be just one Taj Mahal and that’s in Anand,” Srinivasraju remembers.
The PM left dissatisfied. However when Gowda was boarding his flight, Kurian got here operating, apologised for the earlier dialog and provided his assist to construct the model.
Gowda’s elder son H.D. Revanna helmed affairs of the milk unions at the moment and continues to wield vital affect to this present day. The development of the model had political advantages for the Gowda clan.
Again in 2023, the dairy row made nationwide headlines, forcing the BJP on the backfoot.
“Already 16 to 18 totally different personal and public sector manufacturers are promoting milk merchandise within the state. However Nandini, attributable to its prime quality, stays essentially the most most well-liked model available in the market. So to say that Amul is a risk to Nandini is an insult to our house grown model,” Karnataka well being minister Ok. Sudhakar informed reporters on 8 April.
Since then a number of BJP leaders have rubbished the Congress prices of imposing one model over the opposite, attributing it extra to a political technique than concern for Nandini.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Additionally Learn: ‘No different possibility’ — behind Amul worth revisions, a battle in opposition to hovering prices in Gujarat’s dairies