Manthan, a Shyam Benegal film of 1976, was about the churning of the agrarian society and a promise held by the milk co-operatives for them. Amul is the representative of this churn — it has farmer membership 3 .3 million. Its 85 per cent membership is of small and marginal farmers. However, the recent members who are joining the movement are the affluent farmers with big herd size of 30-50 animals, and having an automated dairy unit. This transition is being encouraged. They already have 5000 such large commercial farms.

The NDDB estimates milk demand to rise to 180 million tonnes by 2022, as against 140 million tonnes today. Thus there should be an increase of 5 million tonnes per annum over the next few years to meet the demand.

Instead of transporting milk to deficient states, the thinking today is to source milk there itself.

In order to retain voting rights, farmers must bring at least 400 litres of milk per cow to the co-operative and the rest they have the freedom to sell anyway they like.

Many families are dropping out of the system. Marrying into a family keeping animals is not attractive for the girls. The sons in the farmer’s family is gravitating to the jobs in the urban area. There is no life in dairying.

The churn continues.