Sumul Dairy - Surat, India

Sumul or Surat Milk Union Limited, which is now renamed as The Surat District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Ltd, is one among the 17 district unions which acts as manufacturing units of dairy products for Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Limited, the marketers of Amul brand of products.

Surat District has been a Pioneer in India in channeling trade in Cotton and Milk through co-operatives. Before SUMUL stepped in, traditional Private Milk Traders were dominant in the area.

The private trade was monopolizing the Milk market and exploiting both the Milk Producers and Consumers alike. The milk procurement price which used to be fixed by the traders (traditional Bhatias) was very low and was fluctuating from time to time at their sole discretion. These has capitalized  

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on the absence of any infrastructure and processing facilities and has managed to keep producers from deriving equitable benefits from the marketable surplus generated. As such their income from milk was very low and they had no incentive for modern dairy farming. The farmers resented the system, but were helpless in the face of these traditional constraints and to their own lack of resourcelessness.