Yep. Gujarat BJP. State cooperatives are captured by the ruling party of a state.

That said, Amul is just one of 200k cooperatives in India. Verka (Punjab/HP), Nandini (Karnataka), Milma (Kerala), AAVIN (Tamil Nadu), and others generate Amul level profits and are managed by opposition parties.

The issue is dairy processors in the US tend to take 70% of profit, versus 20-30% in India, because most processors are themselves cooperative owned.

Farmers also tend to "go it alone" in the US, but in South Asia the whole village collaborates. Even Punjabi farmers here in Californa collaborate with each other on capex investments, but the Anglo farmers go it alone.

A cooperative ag model would really help Pakistan as well, but that would require destroying the military's monopoly on various segments of the Ag industry which they won't give up.

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selimthegrim a day ago | parent [-]

Another issue might be that PDS was abolished in the 80s (utility stores at provincial level are similar but not the same)

I believe arhatiya also play a similar role in Pak as in India. I wonder if Modi’s farm bill affected these coops.

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alephnerd a day ago | parent [-]

Nope. The MSP laws didn't affect cooperatives. The issue is, a common side hustle Punjabi, Haryanvi, JK, and Himachali farmers do is import MSP crops from states like MP or Bihar and then sell it to the MSP broker in Punjab, Haryana, JK, or Himachal. As trucking in India is largely consolidated in PB/HR/HP/JK it makes it easier for larger farmers in those regions to build the supply chains needed to do an MSP arbitrage.

Essentially, instead of farming, you become a commodity broker (arhatiya)

This is why you didn't see similar protests in other states in India that also have MSP like Kerala or Gujarat, because they don't have the same logistics chain (otherwise they'd do it as well).

> Another issue might be that PDS was abolished in the 80s (utility stores at provincial level are similar but not the same

Oof, that is not good. India has shown that a PDS style model can work nowadays thanks to digitization. Pakistan needs to redeploy the PDS system if the ag economy is to recovery, especially after the floods.

> arhatiya

Yep, but they tend to be in those commodities that aren't covered by a cooperative.

	▲	selimthegrim an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Was thinking more of arhatiya as short term lender but that tracks