Billing for your dairy shop in Arunachal Pradesh
Litres in from the farmer, litres out to the household, and each month's milk on one page.
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From the farmer's can to the household's monthly page
The far village's can and the near village's can, read side by side
Put the farmer's village beside his name when you write his litres. The can from the far village has the longest ride down the hill road on a bike, and the can from the near one the shortest. After a month the far village's litres read apart from the near one's, so you know how much of your morning comes down the long road.
A dry week read as a number, so the households are told the truth
When a farmer's can does not come, the week's litres show a gap beside his name. You can tell each household how many litres short the shop was and how long it will last, and plan which of the other farmers to ask for more.
The night the power failed: the fridge's milk counted next morning, litre by litre
When the power fails in the night, the milk in the fridge may not keep. In the morning you open the fridge and count each can's litres against what was written in. What must be thrown away is a number on the farmer's page, not a loss spread over the week.
Tools for a counter of milk cans, curd cups and ghee jars
Bills on your phone
A bill with fresh hill milk by the litre and a jar of ghee, shown on the phone to a household that is buying ahead of a closed road.
Credit book (khata)
A milk page for the household on the far side of the stream, so a week the road is closed is a week of dated lines and not a gap.
Daily reports
The litres sold on each morning of the rains, kept, so you see which mornings the cans came late and the shelf was thin.
Many shops, one owner
A second counter at the stand where the cans first arrive, counted apart from the town shop, with the litres moved between the two written down.
Changlang, where families keep cattle, pigs, goats and poultry
A dairy shop buys from the same families who keep the animals, so the way a district lives decides who brings the milk.
- Most people in Changlang live by farming and rearing cattle, pigs, goats and poultry, with trade in local products as extra income.
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Why the morning milk of a hill dairy cannot wait for noon
A farmer with a costly cow and a farmer with a local one stand at your door together
One farmer brought his cow up from the plains at a high price and wants a rate that repays it. The other keeps a local cow and asks less. Both stand at the door at dawn with a can. Whichever you pay less takes his can to the next shop, and your morning supply thins by a few litres.
The morning line is short on the days the milk goes to the society
Where a dairy society opens, a farmer may take one milking to the society and the other to your counter, and change it from week to week. On the days he goes to the society the line at your door is shorter, and the households that took his milk ask why. His page at your counter shows only what he brought you.
Packet milk brought from the plains beside fresh milk from the hills
A shelf of packet milk that came up by vehicle stands beside the fresh milk from the hill farm. The two have different rates and different lives, and customers switch between them with the weather and the road. You keep one tally for both and cannot say which of the two was worth stocking.
Litres, cups and monthly pages: what dairy owners here ask
Can what a farmer owes me for goods be set against the milk I owe him?
Yes. Write his goods on his page as you give them and the milk as you take it. The last line shows the difference, so one payment settles both and nothing is counted twice.
A farmer joins the dairy cooperative society and sells me less. Can I see how much his litres fell?
Yes. His page lists the litres you took, week by week. Open it and the weeks before and after he joined sit one under the other, so you see the fall and can plan the morning's cans.
A neighbour's cow gives milk only in the wet months. Can I keep her page quiet in the dry months?
Yes. Her page shows the litres of each wet month, so in the dry months you know how much you will lack and ask the other farmers in time.
491 cooperative societies and cattle brought from afar
The state Cooperative Development Committee approved setting up 491 cooperative societies over five years, including 157 Dairy Cooperative Societies, 150 multipurpose societies and 184 fisheries societies. A dairy shop in a district where a new society opens will meet farmers who sell to the society as well as to the counter, and will have to keep its own account of each. A new society also sets a price that farmers can compare, and the counter's rate has to be one a farmer can see written and checked.
Arunachal brings in high genetic merit cattle from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh at high transport cost, and NDDB is preparing reports for two new dairy plants. When a cow costs so much to bring, the milk of each cow matters, and a dairy that notes its litres every day knows what its milk really earns.