Amul is an acronym of the Indian Multinational cooperative society named Gujarat Milk Marketing Federation based in Anand, Gujarat. It is under the ownership of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Limited, Department of Cooperation, Government of Gujarat. It is controlled by 3.6 million milk producers.
Verghese Kurien, Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel, and Harichand Megha Dalaya
Charles, Prince of Wales, visits India and Amul with Harichand Megha Dalaya, in December 1980
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Amul's chocolate plant at Anand in September 2018
Amul plant at Anand, Gujarat, showing the milk silos
A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. They differ from collectives in that they are generally built from the bottom-up, rather than the top-down.
Cooperatives may include:Worker cooperatives: businesses owned and managed by the people who work there
Consumer cooperatives: businesses owned and managed by the people who consume goods and/or services provided by the cooperative
Producer cooperatives: businesses where producers pool their output for their common benefit
eg. Agricultural cooperatives
Purchasing cooperatives where members pool their purchasing power
Multi-stakeholder or hybrid cooperatives that share ownership between different stakeholder groups. For example, care cooperatives where ownership is shared between both care-givers and receivers. Stakeholders might also include non-profits or investors.
Second- and third-tier cooperatives whose members are other cooperatives
Platform cooperatives that use a cooperatively owned and governed website, mobile app or a protocol to facilitate the sale of goods and services.
The volunteer board of a retail consumers' cooperative, such as the former Oxford, Swindon & Gloucester Co-op, is held to account at an annual general meeting of members.
Robert Owen (1771–1858) was a social reformer and a pioneer of the cooperative movement.
The statue of Samuel Jurkovič, national awakener and founder of first cooperative in Central Europe (Spolok Gazdovský) in Rača, Bratislava
Cooperative of agricultural products of Alginet, 1963