Co-operation · Ch 7 — Processing Co-operative Society
Types of Processing Co-operative Societies and Maharashtra Examples
Types of Processing Co-operative Societies and Maharashtra Examples
4. Types and Real Maharashtra Examples
Processing co-operatives are classified according to the kind of produce they process. The main types are:
| Type | Raw produce processed | Finished product |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar processing co-operative | Sugarcane | Sugar (and by-products: molasses, bagasse, ethanol) |
| Dairy processing co-operative | Milk | Pasteurised milk, butter, ghee, milk powder, cheese |
| Cotton ginning & pressing co-operative | Raw (kapas) cotton | Ginned lint and pressed cotton bales |
| Oilseed processing co-operative | Groundnut, soybean, sunflower, etc. | Edible oil and oil-cake |
| Rice / dal / agro-processing co-operative | Paddy, pulses, other grains | Milled rice, cleaned pulses, flour |
Sugar processing co-operatives — Maharashtra's flagship. Maharashtra is where India's co-operative sugar movement began. Pravara Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana Ltd, at Pravaranagar in Ahmednagar district, was India's first co-operative sugar factory — it was set up under the leadership of Padmashri Dr. Vitthalrao Vikhe Patil, with the guidance of the economist Dhananjayrao Gadgil, and began crushing cane in 1950. Its success became the model for hundreds of co-operative sugar factories across western Maharashtra (districts such as Ahmednagar, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Solapur and Pune), making the state one of India's largest sugar producers. In a sugar co-operative, member cane-growers supply their cane to their own factory, which crushes it into sugar and sells it, returning the proceeds to members as a cane price plus a share of any surplus.
Dairy processing co-operatives. Member milk producers pool their milk, which the society pasteurises and processes into packaged milk, butter, ghee and milk powder for sale. In Maharashtra, milk from primary village co-operatives is federated upward, and the Maharashtra Rajya Sahakari Dudh Mahasangh (the Maharashtra State Co-operative Milk Federation, whose brand is 'Mahanand') is the state-level apex processing and marketing body for co-operative milk. (The best-known Indian dairy co-operative brand, Amul, belongs to a co-operative federation in the neighbouring state of Gujarat — it is a famous national example of the dairy co-operative model, though it is not itself a Maharashtra society.)
Cotton ginning and pressing co-operatives. In Maharashtra's cotton belt (Vidarbha and parts of Marathwada and Khandesh), member cotton-growers own ginning-and-pressing units that separate lint from seed (ginning) and compress the lint into standard bales (pressing) for sale to textile mills — retaining for the growers the value that a private ginner would otherwise take. …
Ginning separates cotton lint (fibre) from the seed in raw cotton; pressing compresses the lint into standard-size bales for sale to textile mills — the processing carried out by a …
A processing co-operative owned by member cane-growers that crushes their sugarcane into sugar; Maharashtra's Pravara Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana (Pravaranag …