PROJECT SYNOPSIS

MILKIFY – MILK FROM MOO TO YOU

BACHELOR OF COMPUTER APPLICATION

School of Engineering & Technology

SUBMITTED BY

TAHIR UDDIN KHAN

Feb 2020
 ABSTRACT

Today, India's 150 million dairy farmers produce more milk than any other country. The vast majority
of these farmers are small landholders, owning just two or three cows or buffaloes. Half of India’s milk
is either consumed by its producers or sold directly to households in rural areas and nearby towns and
cities. Small dairy farmers often referred to as the 'unorganized sector' continue to struggle to reach
their consumer base. Among the reasons for this are increasing investments from private companies
and industrialization of the dairy sector.

Milkify is a platform to connect the small dairy farmers to consumers in towns and cities. It provides
easier access to the market for both the parties involved. In this application, the farmers can list their
daily milk production quantity and decide the locations in the cities to which they can deliver. As for
the consumers, they can comfortably view all the vendors that are delivering milk in their
neighbourhood and also read reviews from other buyers.

The application is available on both desktop and mobile. Using this software we can combat the
problem of reaching the audience for local milk producers while also providing better quality milk
options for the local families.
 MOTIVATION

As a consumer of milk from a nearby local farmer since my childhood, I have been interested in
creating a platform for them since my interest in computing began. My own experiences of purchasing
milk from them have led me to ponder many questions as to why there are so many farmers in India,
however, they don’t have a platform to easily sell their daily produce. This project has allowed me to
explore the local dairy industry to find out the answers to my questions.

My knowledge of this field at the start of the project was casual. I knew generally about how they sold
their milk in the city by forming contacts and using the word of mouth as the main source of
promotions.

The learning curve embarked on has been considerably steeper than the previous work I have
undertaken. The software component constitutes my first true software development culminating in a
final product. My previous knowledge of the PHP language did not cater for the scale of this work, and
my skills in Java and Python were only of a basic level. Through the development, I have learned
everything necessary about these languages and how they can be applied to creating a platform on the
internet.

From the theory aspect, I have done much research into the statistics of the dairy industry in India and
its related areas including the recent market capture by public cooperatives or private dairies. Also, I
studied how local dairy farmers create their local consumer base in the cities along with the options for
local families to purchase from these small scale farmers.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

Milk production is an important rural activity in India providing supplementary income, employment
and nutrition to millions of rural households. The output of milk and milk products has increased faster
than of the crops during the past four decades. Some studies have shown that modernization has
benefited largely large farmers and excluded smallholder milk producers. On the other hand, some
studies have indicated that modernization can have positive impact on smallholder milk producers. The
results clearly show that modern private dairy plants and traditional channels preferred supplies from
large farmers that can supply more quantities of quality milk and smallholder milk producers are
excluded from these channels.[ CITATION Tor03 \l 16393 ]

Studies indicate that 80 percent of the milk produced by the rural producer is handled by an
unorganized sector and the remaining 20 percent is handled by an organized sector. It is found that the
dairy co-operatives play a vital role in alleviating rural poverty by augmenting rural milk production
and marketing. Involvement of intermediaries; lack of bargaining power by the producers; and lack of
infrastructure facilities for collection, storage, transportation, and processing are the major constraints
which affect the prices received by producers in milk marketing. Milk quality, product development,
infrastructure support development, and global marketing are found to be future challenges of India’s
milk marketing[ CITATION KRa04 \l 16393 ].

The results show that the majority of farmers in cooperative market channel, produce their milk
individually (as economies of scale in milk production are almost absent), but market collectively (as
economies of scale in marketing and processing of milk are very significant).

Distance to milk collection centre is negatively related with modern market channel participation,
which indicates that as distance of milk collection centre increases, farmers tend to sell their output to
traditional marketing channel as most of the traditional channel players collect milk from farmer’s
doorsteps.[ CITATION Anj11 \l 16393 ]

Marketing of the majority of the milk through unorganized sectors is likely to dissuade small dairy
farmers from expending production, which is absolutely necessary to keep up with the strong demand
growth.
India has the largest cattle and buffalo population in the world. More than 67 percent of dairy animals
are owned by marginal and small farmers, which constitute the core milk-production sector in the
country. Many of these farmers own dairy animals primarily to supply milk for their own consumption.
Slightly more than 30 percent of the milk produced in the country is retained in producer households.
Eighty percent of milk is marketed through the highly fragmented unorganized sector, which includes
local milk vendors, wholesalers, retailers, and producers themselves. On the other hand, the organized
dairy industry, which accounts for about 20 percent of total milk production, comprises two sectors:
government and co-operatives. Even though co-operatives provide a remunerative price to the
producer, the unorganized sector plays a major role in milk marketing because of three factors. The
first factor is the pricing policy of the co-operatives: their purchase price is based on the fat content of
the milk, whereas the private sector pays a flat rate per litre of milk. The second factor, which
motivates the milk producers to sell milk to private vendors, involves the type of milk animals reared
by the producer.

Although the organized sector handles less than 20 percent of the production, it has an installed
capacity to process about 33 percent of India’s total milk production. The dairy sector is characterized
by small-scale, scattered, and unorganized milk-animal holders; low productivity; inadequate and
inappropriate animal feeding and health care; lack of an assured year-round remunerative producer
price for milk; an inadequate basic infrastructure for provision of production inputs and services; an
inadequate basic infrastructure for procurement, transportation, processing and marketing of milk; and
lack of professional management.

Producers are not receiving a remunerative price for their produce because of the presence of
middlemen in milk marketing. By reducing the number of middlemen between producer and consumer,
the consumers’ share to the producer can be increased. In other words, bridging the gap between the
producer and the consumer can increase the producer’s share. Producers’ bargaining power and the
lack of proper infrastructure for transportation, distribution, and storage are other constraints which
make milk procurement difficult. Furthermore, it future challenges in milk marketing are mainly
concerned with quality, product development, infrastructure support development, and global
marketing. We can overcome these challenges by strengthening the dairy co-operatives.[ CITATION
Ott06 \l 16393 ]
 OBJECTIVES

The main objective of the Milkify platform is to provide a smooth platform for the small scale farmers
based in the villages to connect with the consumers in the towns and cities. Our project aims at making
the task easy for both the involved parties.

Firstly, farmers can access a larger market with high consumer base where they can sell more products
apart from milk such as ghee. Also, they can increase their reputation in the consumers using the
review module wherein if they have high reviews they can get better selling opportunities.

On the other hand, Consumers in the cities who dislike packed milk can purchase subscriptions from
the local farmers without any hassle. Also, they can purchase milk from other animals such as cow,
camels, etc.

Overall, the main aspiration of this project is to use computer science as a way to improve opportunities
for both the participants in the dairy industry.
 METHODOLOGY

In order to achieve the proposed objectives, a methodology was developed to develop a stable software
and implement the techniques of software engineering techniques precisely. Many research papers and
local market survey had led me to develop the initial design of the Milkify platform.

To begin with, all the functional and non-functional requirements were gathered and listed to form the
requirements list. Based on this, the flowchart and use case diagrams of the software were designed.

Secondly, to develop this application, Python Language was used as the backend technology as well as
the language to develop an Application Program Interface, also known as API.

Also, the application has 3 layers, i.e. Admin Level that supports the administrator privileges and User
Level that support the consumers and milk sellers.

Finally, a platform was built in which the farmer can publish his products in the areas he deliver along
with the prices along with the options for the consumers to purchase it from anywhere within the
delivering areas.
 SOFTWARE & HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
CLIENT SIDE:
Operating systems: Windows 7 or later, macOS, and Linux
Ram: 2 GB RAM
Hard Disk: 1 GB
SERVER SIDE:
Operating systems: Windows 7 or later, macOS, and Linux
Ram: 4 GB RAM
Hard Disk: 4 GB

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:
Python versions: 3.6.X or later
Database: PostgreSQL
Browser: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, IE or any latest browser that supports
JavaScript.
 REFERENCES

[1] “Determinants of Small Milk Producers’ Participation in Organized Dairy Value Chains: Evidence
from India,” Agricultural Economics Research Review, vol. 28, pp. 247-361, 2015.

[2] N. R. E. M. R. A. W. Corinne L. Shefner-Rogers, “The Empowerment of Women,” Journal of

Applied Communication Research, pp. 319-337, 1998.

[3] S. J. S. D. K. S. Anjani Kumar, “Smallholder Dairy Farmers Access to Modern Milk Marketing,”
Agricultural Economics Research Review, vol. 24, pp. 243-254, July-December 2011.

[4] M. P. S. a. P. S. Pooja Patel, “Entrepreneurial Behaviour of Dairy farmers,” Indian Research

Journal of Extension Education, pp. 46-49, 2014.

[5] A. S. K. M. A. N. a. T. H. Otto Garcia, “Dairy Development Programs in Andhra Pradesh, India:

Impacts and Risks for Small-scale Dairy Farms,” 2006.

[6] O. G. a. A. S. Torsten Hemme, “A Review of Milk Productionin India with Particular Emphasison
Small-Scale Producers,” Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Facility, Rome, 2003.