Determinants of Small Milk Producers’ Participation in Organized Dairy Value Chains: Evidence from India

Indian dairy industry which was highly regulated till late-1990s, has been completely liberalized and exposed to world competition. The past decade has seen rapid changes in the Indian dairy sector and there have been growing concerns on the likely impacts of these changes on smallholder producers. The present paper has analysed determinants of market channel choices of small milk producers based on farm household survey and has investigated what impacts these market channel choices may have on farmers’ income and technology adoption. The study has found that though there have been emerging milk marketing channels, the traditional sector still dominates. The analysis has indicated that small dairy farmers are not excluded from the cooperatives but are excluded from the modern private sector.