Verghese Kurien "father of the white revolution"

 

                                       

"I consider Varghese Kurien to be one of the world's great agricultural leaders of this century. This collection of his speeches, so aptly entitled An Unfinished Dream, can help to light the way for those who must carry on the battle to ensure greater food security, prosperity, and peace to the world. I am honoured to commend this book to those future hunger fighters..."

Norman E Borlaug
1970 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

 Born: November 26, 1921

Dr. Verghese Kurien is better known as the "father of the white revolution" in India. He is also called as the Milkman of India. Dr. Varghese Kurien was the architect behind the success of the largest dairy development program in the world, christened as Operation Flood. He was the chairman of the Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF) and his name was synonymous with the Amul brand.

Born on November 26, 1921 in Kozhikode, Kerala, Dr. Verghese Kurien graduated with Physics from Loyola College, Madras in 1940. Subsequently, he did his B.E.(Mechanical) from the Madras University and went to USA on a government scholarship to do his Masters in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan State University. In between, he completed special studies in engineering at the Tata Iron and Steel Company Institute at Jamshedpur, Bihar, in February 1946 and underwent nine months of specialized training in dairy engineering at the National Dairy Research Institute of Bangalore.

Dr. Verghese Kurien returned from America in 1948 and joined the Dairy Department of the Government of India. In May 1949, he was posted as Dairy Engineer at the Government Research Creamery, a small milk-powder factory, in Anand, Gujarat. Around this time, the newly formed cooperative dairy, Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Limited ((KDCMPUL), was engaged in battle of survival with the privately owned Polson Dairy, which was a giant in its field. Enthused by the challenge, Dr. Verghese Kurien left his government job and volunteered to help Shri Tribhuvandas Patel, the Chairman of KDCMPUL, to set up a processing plant. This led to the birth of AMUL and the rest is history.

In 1965, the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, created the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) under the leadership of Dr. Verghese Kurien to replicate the success story of Amul throughout the country. In 1973, Dr. Kurien set up GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation) to market the products produced by the dairies. Under Dr. Kurien's stewardship India became the as the largest producer of milk in the world,

During his illustrious career, Dr. Verghese Kurien won many accolades and awards. These include: Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1963), Padma Shri (1965), Padma Bhushan (1966), Krishi Ratna Award (1986), Wateler Peace Prize Award of Carnegie Foundation (1986), World Food Prize Laureate (1989), International Person of the Year(1993) by the World Dairy Expo, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, and Padma Vibhushan (1999).

An Unfinished Dream has three sections: A Dream, Defending the Dream, and A Dream Renewed. Each section, while joined by a theme, draws on the past and looks towards the future. Dr. Verghese Kurien is the Chairman of India's National Dairy Development Board, the National Cooperative Dairy Federation of India and the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation. His professional life has been dedicated to empowering the Indian farmer through cooperatives. The architect of India's White Revolution, "Operation Flood", his work has been recognised by the award of a Padma Bhushan, the Ramon Magsaysay Prize for Community Leadership, the Carnegie-Wateler World Peace Prize, and the World Food Prize. "We must build on the resources represented by our young professionals and by our nation's farmers. Without their involvement, we cannot succeed. With their involvement, we cannot fail... Those of us who are of our country's urban elite often fail to recognise the tremendous resource that our nation's farmers represent. It is that resource, linked with the professional manager, that can return India to its position as a surplus producer... True development involves building the institutional capacity to respond to new and diverse challenges; to adapt, to innovate and to create newer institutional forms ..." This is one of the best auto-biographies I have ever read so far. It is about the life and work of Dr. Varghese Kurien. For people who don’t know who is Dr. Kurien is, just think about the famous advertisement: ‘Amul – The taste of India’. He is the man behind the Amul brand and the key person who envisioned, carved and executed the blueprint for the ‘White revolution’. This book consists of his experiences, which is truly inspirational, amazing and mind-blowing. I can easily compare his achievements with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam’s contributions to strategic and defense sector. The story starts with Dr. Kurien finishing his Master of Science in Metallurgical Engineering from Michigan State University, which was sponsored by Indian government. As the government sponsored his scholarship, he is supposed to serve the government in return. Because of this agreement he gets ‘accidentally’ posted to a small, dusty, lazy, unknown village called ‘Anand’ (In the Kaira district of Gujarat) and supposed to be taking the responsibility of the government owned milk production department over there. Frustrated with his new job (think of doing masters in metallurgy from US University and doing such a ‘punishment’ job) Dr.Kurien decides to quit his job and move to Delhi to take up another job. In the mean time he meets another visionary personality called Mr. Thirubhuvan Das Patel and he requests him to take care of the co-operative milk society of Anand till he gets his new job in Delhi. This ‘accident’ literally changes his life and this angry, energetic, passionate young man decides to stay in Anand and start building the co-operative society from the ‘scratch’. In his long journey, he faced innumerous amount of problems from private business houses, government, multinational companies (like nestle) and fought tooth and nails against all these odds. His 35 year effort had literally ‘transformed’ the face of India and today we are number one in milk production. After achieving success by building ‘Amul’, he went on to execute the ‘white revolution’ plan in India which created multiple Amuls across the country. It all started off in 1946 with 200 liter milk production per day to 18 million litters in 2005. The top line revenue is been 2882 crores (roughly about 720 million USD) spanning 24 states, 11,400 co-operative milk societies. This is truly a ‘bottom-up’ revolution. Even though there are lots of things that can be learnt from his experiences, I would list my top 5 learning's as follows: Empowerment of farmers: If at all India wants to be a developed country empowerment of farmers is a must. As much as 40% of Indian households rely on agriculture and related areas. Empowering these people to earn basic food, education and healthcare is very vital. This ‘bottom-up’ approach is will result in self employment generation and sustenance which goes in sync with Gandhi’s famous quote: ‘India lives in villages’. No amount of privatization, globalization would help for these folks. Recently this is once again proved with the success of ‘Micro-credit’ concept introduced by Muhammed Yusuf. You can read more about this in my blog on ‘Micro credit and Muhammed Yusuf’. Professional folks: The young, educated, professional people need to stay in India in order to make something happen over here. Having said that, it is not all that easy because of the way our systems work in India. Dr. Kurien fought against so many bureaucrats, politicians, and private business people in order to achieve his success. This was mainly because he had a good education, which made him to think ‘beyond self’. Importance of domestic market: Creation of domestic market is extremely important for selling any products. What is the use if we have an array of products lined up and there are no takers? Dr. Kurien understood this right from the beginning and created a domestic market for milk and milk product consumption. He was able to achieve this by offering multiple products like milk powder, child food, pasteurized milk, butter, ghee and sweets like milk peda. He priced those products at affordable prices (failing which you can’t sell products in India) and designed a clear marketing function created the brand ‘Amul’. Professional management: The ‘professional’ management is the differentiator any organization, which should have a great vision. In his book Dr. Kurien talks about number of individuals who have significantly contributed to the growth of Amul and the white revolution. Time and again he re-iterated that a professional team combined with farmers is really a ‘killer’ combination. The success of Amul and white revolution speaks for itself. Personal leadership and Innovation: Dr. Kurien has demonstrated personal leadership by ‘leading by example’ which empowered lakhs and lakhs of farmers. I also could see following examples for innovation: For the first time in the world, Dr. Kurien and his team demonstrated that the milk powder can be produced from buffalo’s milk. Since most of the milk we get in India is from buffalos, this created a unique opportunity for Indian milk powders. This I would say a ‘product innovation’. In order to execute the white revolution, Dr. Kurien required huge amount of fund. During the same time developed countries had excess amount of milk powder, which they were giving it to countries like India for free. He smartly negotiated with these folks and started selling the ‘free’ milk powder inside the country for an optimal price. He raised the capital through this internal selling which I would say ‘business innovation’. In 1970s his team invented the ‘milk vending’ machine for the first time and made it work in Indian conditions. In a way this machine is a great grand father of today’s money vending machines (or ATMs). I would say this is an innovation in the area of ‘Distribution and supply’. Dr swminathan father of indian green Revulution Dr Vargeas Kurien  father of white Revolution  Both are from Gods Own Country i.e KERALA -----NEELANJAN