Dimul registers record milk procurement

[caption id="attachment_282913" align="alignleft" width="300"] Aru Khate[/caption] Our Reporter Dimapur, Nov. 15 (EMN): Dimapur District Co-operative Milk producers’ Union Ltd. (Dimul) recorded the highest milk procurement in its history with a total 14.74 lakh litres in the year 2018-19. Dimul chairman Aru Khate informed this during the presentation of the union’s annual report audited statement for the year 2018-2019 at the 22nd annual general meeting, held at Dimul Central Dairy Plant premise in Dimapur, on Friday. Khate announced that the union registered total revenue of INR 1529.93 lakh during the last one year (2018-2019), which is an increase of 14.18% over the preceding year, and added that improvement was seen in the sale of all products. He stated that year-round productive self-employment plays a vital role in improving the economic condition of the rural population and that dairy cooperative has provided livelihood opportunities to the rural households and helped avoid exploitation from the ‘opportunistic middlemen’ in the villages. The chairman also asserted that milk production is changing from being a subsidiary economic activity to a major economic activity for many rural households and encouraged the gathering to continue to provide support and strengthen their village-level dairy cooperatives, and to scale up milk production. Speaking on the occasion, the principal of Cooperative Training Centre in Medziphema, Bendangtula Jamir, highlighted certain areas that cooperative education should give utmost importance to; and the need to train the society members in bookkeeping, accounting, and management. Jamir said that women membership in dairy cooperatives should be increased and more women dairy cooperatives be organised as they primarily shoulder animal husbandry-related responsibility in rural area. He also advised the gathering to initiate measures to provide leadership opportunities to women and include them in decision-making.