The authors gratefully acknowledge many institutions and individuals that have facilitated the undertaking of this study. Grateful acknowledgement of project funding support is made to the Livestock, Environment, and Development (LEAD) initiative housed at Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and supported in this instance by the European Commission, with additional support from the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and the core programs of FAO and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). We thank Dr. Henning Steinfeld, Chief, Livestock Information, Sector Analysis and Policy Branch, Animal Production and Health Division, FAO, and Dr. Ashok Gulati, Director, Markets, Trade and Institutions Division, IFPRI for their encouragement, support and consistent interest in the project. Last but not least, we would like to thank Professor Bakul H. Dholakia, Director, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad for his encouragement at various stages of the study.
Our list of thanks and acknowledgements to participants in the dairy sector for help in producing this report is very long. First and foremost are the individual farm producers who agreed to answer our probing questions. Furthermore, the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), Nestlé India Limited, Mehsana District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Ltd., Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union Ltd. (Amul), National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), Punjab State Cooperative Milk Producers' Federation Ltd. (MILKFED) and many other organizations helped us in this study and also allowed generous use of their facilities. We had the benefit of discussions with a number of professionals and colleagues. We are especially grateful to Mr. D. Tikku, Managing Director, NDDB, Mr. B.M. Vyas, Managing Director, GCMMF, Mr. Juerg Stocker, Nestlé India Limited, Mr. M.M. Bhat, Managing Director, and Dr. M.S. Amin from Dudhsagar Dairy, Mr. K.S. Dhaliwal, Nestle Moga, Dr. N.N Varshney, Mr. B.K. Ganguly, and Mr. T.N. Datta from NDDB. We are very grateful to all these individuals and organizations and if any are inadvertently missing from this list we apologize and ask for understanding. Our greatest debt is to our dairy farmers of the selected areas, without whose help fieldwork would have been impossible.
We owe a heavy intellectual debt to several colleagues. Dr. Clare Narrod of FAO contributed the chapter on "Efforts of the Dairy Households Surveyed to Capture Environmental Externalities", and made useful suggestions throughout the study. Dr. Marites Tiongco of IFPRI provided stellar help with the empirical analysis of the data. We are grateful to Mr. Saradendu Patnaik, Hiren Tilala and other research investigators, who traveled in remote areas to collect household data. This study would not have been possible without their commitment. We also wish to acknowledge participants from the Survey Design Workshop organized by FAO-LEAD Initiative in Los Banos, Philippines August 12-16, 2002. Prof. Sharma was a Visiting Researcher at International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C. and is indebted to the institution for collegial interaction with many persons during the stay.
Needless to say, all observations and conclusions are our own and we alone are responsible for any shortcomings and that no comment or opinion expressed in this manuscript should be viewed as an indicator of the effective or ineffective handling of the Indian dairy sector.
Vijay Paul Sharma
Christopher L. Delgado
Steven Staal
Raj Vir Singh
