Empowering Women Through Dairy Cooperatives in India

India is the world’s largest milk producer, yet the women who make this possible remain largely invisible in the system. They milk the animals, feed the cattle, clean the sheds, and manage animal health – often before the rest of the household wakes up. Nearly 70% of the workforce in dairy farming consists of women, and yet for decades, the income, the cooperative membership, and the decision-making power sat with the men in the household. Dairy cooperatives in India are slowly, but meaningfully, changing that equation.

Women’s contributions to Indian dairying 🔗

Women’s involvement in dairy is not new – it is deeply embedded in the fabric of rural Indian households. Women account for around two-thirds of total time spent on dairying by all household members combined. They handle the labor-intensive, home-based tasks: feeding animals, milking, collecting and storing milk, and maintaining animal health on a daily basis. Men, by contrast, tend to take over activities that happen outside the home – transporting milk to collection centers and interacting with cooperative officials.

This gendered division of labor creates a deep structural problem. The person doing most of the work is rarely the one who receives the income or holds the cooperative membership. Despite bearing the heavily labor-intensive tasks of milking and caring for the animals, women dairy farmers in India do not typically own the cattle or the land. Since livestock and land are commonly used as collateral for loans, women are effectively locked out of formal financial access.

Despite this, the dairy sector offers livelihood opportunities specifically for marginal and female farmers, making it one of the most accessible entry points into the rural economy for women. When women do gain direct control over dairy income – even partially – the impact on household nutrition, children’s education, and family savings is measurably positive. Women who control resources tend to reinvest more prudently in dairying and in the family’s wellbeing compared to when that control rests with men.

Formalizing women’s participation: the cooperative model 🔗

India’s dairy cooperative structure, built on the three-tier Amul model, connects village-level societies to district unions and state federations. This model was designed for scale and farmer ownership – but for a long time, “farmer” in practice often meant the male head of the household. The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) recognized this gap and began actively working to close it.

NDDB promotes Women Dairy Cooperatives (WDCs) to enhance women’s participation in the cooperative system, and encourages milk unions to organise all-women dairy cooperative societies. The rationale is clear: when women are formally registered as members, they receive payment directly, build a financial identity, and gain a legitimate voice in governance. The cooperative becomes a vehicle not just for milk collection, but for social and economic recognition.

By March 2018, the number of all-women dairy cooperatives had reached 33,242 with a membership of 5 million women. This represents a dramatic shift from the situation a decade earlier, when women’s share of total cooperative membership was significantly lower. India also has notable examples of entirely women-run dairy institutions. The Mulukanoor Women’s Mutually Aided Milk Producers’ Cooperative Union in Telangana, established in 2002, is India’s first cooperative dairy set up and run entirely by women. Similarly, Shreeja Milk Producer Company and Icchamati Cooperative Milk Union stand as models of what women-led dairy institutions can achieve.

A concrete example: Muzzaffarpur’s transformation 🔗

The scale of change possible at the grassroots level is captured in a striking example from Bihar. A women’s dairy cooperative society in Muzzaffarpur district, started as part of NDDB’s Women Dairy Project, began with 32 women pouring 40 litres of milk per day. In less than ten years, it had grown to more than 150 women members pouring over 500 litres a day, with women’s average annual dairy income rising significantly from near zero. Many of these women had previously not sold their milk at all – using it only for household consumption. Formalizing their participation through a cooperative changed both their economic standing and their role within the household.

The Women’s Dairy Cooperative Leadership Programme (WDCLP) 🔗

Recognizing that membership alone was not enough, the NDDB designed a targeted intervention to move women from participation to leadership. NDDB initiated the Women’s Dairy Cooperative Leadership Programme (WDCLP) on a pilot basis in 1995, starting in Valsad, Kolhapur, Wayanad, and Goa in western India. The objective was to strengthen the cooperative movement by significantly increasing women’s participation as active members and as leaders in the governance of cooperative societies, unions, and federations.

What the WDCLP actually does 🔗

The programme is not a one-time training event. It is a structured, ongoing process designed to build capability layer by layer. Key activities under the WDCLP include the organisation of women’s clubs, women’s literacy programmes, formation of thrift and credit groups, training on Dairy Cooperative Society (DCS) activities, and education on member rights and responsibilities, as well as the duties of management committee members.

Exposure visits are an important component – women who have never stepped outside their village gain firsthand knowledge of how larger dairy operations and cooperative institutions function. WDCLP led to raising women’s awareness about their rights and responsibilities as cooperative members and encouraged their involvement in social and economic activities.

The WDCLP also identifies women staff within cooperative milk unions to participate in training designed to unlock leadership potential. Once women’s participation is ensured through Women Dairy Cooperatives, it can gradually be developed into a leadership role by providing necessary training to help women ask questions, assert themselves, and take decisions.

Scaling the programme nationally 🔗

The pilot phase proved effective enough that the WDCLP was replicated across dairy cooperatives throughout the country. In a single annual reporting cycle, WDCLP programmes benefited more than 2,805 women, with 355 women’s thrift groups organised – illustrating the scale at which the programme was operating even at the state level.

The National Dairy Plan Phase I (NDP I) built on this momentum. More than 45% – approximately 7.64 lakh – of the total additional members enrolled under NDP I were women. The plan also led to the appointment of Lady Extension Officers (LEOs) and the establishment of more than 4,000 all-women cooperative societies during the project period. These LEOs play a crucial role in bridging the gap between cooperative institutions and women producers at the village level, communicating in familiar spaces and trusted relationships.

NDDB’s long-term goal is ambitious but clear: it envisions enhancing women’s participation in dairy cooperatives to 50%, and ensures that every new cooperative society formed is a women’s DCS and every new member enrolled is a woman. As of 2019, around 300 women had been elected to governance positions in cooperatives, and 23 women held the responsibility of Chairperson in state milk federations and dairy cooperatives across India.

Challenges women face in the dairy cooperative sector 🔗

Progress is real, but it does not come without friction. The barriers women face are structural, social, and economic – and they often reinforce one another.

Asset ownership and financial exclusion 🔗

One of the most persistent challenges is that women do not legally own the assets that define the dairy enterprise. Women dairy farmers are often constrained by gender and social norms that limit their authority over critical assets such as land and equipment, and they frequently lack knowledge of financial products, relying on men to transact on their behalf. Without land or cattle in their name, women cannot independently access credit, and without credit, scaling up or investing in better equipment becomes nearly impossible.

Social and cultural barriers 🔗

Socio-cultural factors – including illiteracy, the expectation that women remain in domestic roles, norms against women speaking in front of men or handling money, and male resistance to women’s participation – make it difficult for women to play an active and visible role in cooperatives. These are not abstract obstacles. They play out in everyday interactions: a woman who cannot attend a cooperative meeting because she needs her husband’s permission, or one who is formally registered as a member but whose husband collects the payment and makes all decisions.

Gender stereotyping and the cultural expectation that men are the household head and primary economic representative serve as significant barriers to involving women in farming decisions. Even within all-women cooperative structures, research has found that caste hierarchies can replicate existing power imbalances, with women from marginalized castes excluded from effective participation despite being formal members.

The gap between formal membership and real power 🔗

Research on women’s dairy cooperatives reveals an uncomfortable truth: formal inclusion does not automatically translate to genuine empowerment. Studies indicate that well-intentioned, top-down interventions aimed at empowering women by instituting women-only dairy cooperatives have limited potential if they do not actively challenge gender and caste norms. In some cases, women are appointed as leaders on paper while men continue to direct decisions behind the scenes. Cooperative bylaws that guarantee caste and gender equality are not transformative on their own – implementation, monitoring, and a genuine shift in community attitudes are required alongside policy.

How the cooperative model is overcoming these challenges 🔗

Despite these limitations, the evidence from well-designed cooperative interventions is encouraging. The Mulukanoor Dairy in Telangana offers one of the clearest examples of what is possible. From its founding, Mulukanoor Dairy created strategies to empower women members, including paying women exclusively for milk, providing technical training to women, and ensuring caste norms were not observed in training and governance settings. The results show genuine improvement in women’s agency – not just economic participation but also how gender relations function within households.

Research comparing cooperative models across Bihar and Telangana found that cooperatives that emerged from women’s self-help groups and women’s activism were far more effective at ensuring women’s control over dairy income and leadership positions than cooperatives established through top-down institutional mandates alone. This points to a crucial design principle: the process of forming a cooperative matters as much as its formal structure.

The thrift and credit groups organized under the WDCLP address the financial exclusion problem directly. By building internal savings mechanisms within communities, these groups give women access to capital outside the formal banking system, reducing dependence on male family members for financial decisions. Literacy programmes under the same initiative address another root cause – women who can read their cooperative bylaws, understand their rights, and sign documents independently are considerably harder to exclude from governance.

The Government of India has also strengthened the legal framework. A constitutional amendment has mandated two female members on the governing board of cooperatives, and many dairy cooperatives have amended their bylaws to increase the number of women in leadership positions. Over 110 female extension officers have been appointed across the country to promote and deepen female participation at the field level, supported by nearly 5,863 female local resource persons assisting dairy farmers on the ground.

The sociological impact extends beyond income. Women’s active involvement in dairy farming elevates their social status within their communities, enhances their visibility as key contributors to the household and local economy, and challenges traditional gender roles – promoting greater gender equality in the process. When a woman’s name is on the cooperative membership, receives direct payment, and attends governance meetings, it signals something significant to the community about who counts as an economic actor.

What do you think? Given that women perform the majority of dairy labor yet historically held little ownership or decision-making power, what structural changes – beyond formal membership – do you believe are essential for cooperatives to genuinely empower women? And how should cooperative institutions balance top-down policy mandates with grassroots, community-led models of women’s participation?

References

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