The 1963 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership

BIOGRAPHY of Dara N. Khurody

Born in Mhow in the Central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh on January 2, 1906 DARA NUSSERWANJI KHURODY developed at 16 years of age the keen interest in dairying that was to lead to a life-long career devoted to the study and solution of problems connected with dairy farming and allied industries. The decisive experience in 1922 of working for his uncle who supplied cream and butter to the military establishments at Mhow prompted him to apply for training in the first course to be given at the Indian Institute of Animal Husbandry and Dairying at Bangalore. In 1925 he received the Government of India Gold Medal, standing first in the All-India Dairy Diploma Examination.

Upon graduation he was employed as Farm Superintendent for the 2,000-acre dairy farm of the Tata Iron and Steel Company at Jamshedpur in Bihar. During his 10 years in this position he was sent to Denmark and Holland for specialized training.

His father and grandfather having been in government service, in 1935 young KHURODY fulfilled his family's expectation that he would follow in their tradition. First accepting an appointment as Marketing Officer for Dairy Products in the newly created Agricultural Marketing Department of the Government of India in Delhi, he was promoted in 1939 to Senior Marketing Officer for Dairy and Animal Husbandry Products.

In this capacity he published a number of reports on surveys conducted by him on marketing of milk, butter, ghee (clarified butter), eggs, hides and skins, wool and other animal products. The most important among these, a report on milk marketing in India and Burma, was the first to give a complete cross-section of the Indian milk industry and contained the germ of the idea later developed at Aarey Milk Colony in Bombay.

His assignment to organize the planning and purchase of milk products for the Defense Services led in 1942 to his appointment as Deputy Director of the Supply Department of the Government of India. When a separate Food Department was created in early 1943 he was named Deputy Controller; in 1944 he became the Director of Purchase for dairy and vegetable oil products.

With the end of World War II in August 1945 KHURODY joined the Bombay Government as Deputy Milk Commissioner to assist in the challenging task of reorganizing the much neglected milk supply for Greater Bombay. As Milk Commissioner from May 1947 to October 1958 he was responsible for planning and implementing the Bombay Milk Scheme, including establishing the Aarey Milk Colony which was to become the largest cattle colonization farm and milk supply plan in Asia and the largest state-owned milk producing center in the world. The Colony has at present 22,000 privately owned buffaloes and the Scheme under KHURODY handles 350,000 liters of milk daily which is supplied to three million consumers. The fiscal turnover amounts to over Rs.100 million (approximately US$21 million) per year. KHURODY also started buying milk from the Anand area as early as November 1945 after which he assisted in developing cooperatives of village producers that became the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers' Union.

In 1958, with the division of Bombay State into Gujarat and Maharashtra according to the two major linguistic elements, KHURODY was named Dairy Development Commissioner and Joint Secretary to the Government of Maharashtra, which includes the city of Bombay. This position enabled him to expedite milk programs for some 15 other cities and towns and to influence dairy development throughout the state.

KHURODY is also credited with initiating "Agmarking" (Agricultural Marketing) in India, the first concerted attempt to guarantee standard quality agricultural products through use of a seal which the government allows approved parties to use on tested products. Its acceptance in early stages was slow because traders resisted standardization and customers did not always appreciate quality factors, but the program is gradually gaining adherents and now there are several agricultural products which cannot be exported unless they are certified for quality under the AGMARK scheme.

D. N. KHURODY is considered one of the most knowledgeable men in India on dairying. He has observed dairying in the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Italy, the U.S.S.R. and the United States. In 1955 he spent three months in Australia and New Zealand studying spray irrigation and handling of milk products.

He attended his first International Dairy Congress in Copenhagen in 1931 and, at successive congresses in The Hague in 1953 and Rome in 1956, served as member and chairman of several dairy and technical committees and presented papers on various aspects of the Bombay experience applicable elsewhere in the tropics. At the 16th Congress held in Copenhagen in 1962 he was appointed President for Dairying in Warm Countries.

His reputation abroad was enhanced by a film entitled "Milk for the Millions," depicting the story of the Bombay Milk Scheme. Shown by the Indian High Commissioner to government officials in Ceylon, this led the Ceylon Government to request his advice on reorganizing the milk supply for Colombo. In 15 days he was able to observe and collect data for a comprehensive report which included 33 recommendations according to which dairy development has been carried forward for Colombo. His Ceylon Report has application for other Asian urban centers where milk production and distribution are more or less similar.

In September 1957 he lectured on "dairying in the tropics" to trainees from India, Pakistan, Ceylon and other Asian countries who were attending a seminar in Copenhagen sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. This resulted in the Danish government, on his recommendation, offering training courses in India on warm country problems, with only advanced training being given in Denmark. So far 110 trainees from 12 Asian countries have been trained under this program. In 1960 KHURODY also started a Dairy Technology Institute at Aarey Milk Colony which offers boys a two-year Dairy Diploma Course.

In 1959 KHURODY negotiated a contract with UNICEF (United Nations Children's Emergency Fund) to equip a second dairy plant for Bombay. Since 1961 he has been the Chairman of the Dairy Science Committee of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, and he was elected President of the Indian Dairy Science Association in June 1963.

The responsibilities of his offices have limited his civic activities primarily to those undertaken by the Bombay Rotary Club, of which he has been a member for 14 years representing Dairy Farming. Unassuming, but possessed of a sparkling personality and sense of humor, he delights in a "spot of gardening." The gardens of his homes in Jamshedpur and Delhi have won many prizes for their fine blooms, as have the extensive gardens at the Aarey Milk Colony.

The KHURODYS are a Parsee family— Zoroastrians— descended from Persian refugees who fled Muslim persecution in the seventh century and settled principally in Bombay State. He and his wife, the former Persis Kothawalla, have two sons, Firdaus, 29, and Nawshir, 27. The sons were educated in England, the elder graduating in dairy technology from Reading and the younger in economics from Cambridge.

Upon reaching the age of 58 and scheduled to retire from government service in October 1963, KHURODY leaves behind a staff of nearly 100 officers and 8,000 workers. A second milk colony, the Worli Dairy, will soon be coming into full operation, bringing the other half of Bombay City's nearly five million population into the Milk Scheme. Due to take up an appointment with the International Dairy Society, a corporation of the U.S. government, as Regional Coordinator for Western Asia, he looks forward to "a continuing effort to bring milk to many more millions." As a senior official of UNICEF recently remarked at a function in Bombay, "Mr. KHURODY came to Aarey from AGMARK. He is now going from Worli to the World."

August 1963
Manila