NEW DELHI — Verghese Kurien, an engineer known as ‘‘India’s milkman’’ who helped revolutionize the country’s dairy industry, has died at 90.
A longtime aide, P.A. Joseph, said Mr. Kurien died Sunday. He had been hospitalized earlier in the month after he grew weak and stopped eating.
Mr. Kurien, a strong advocate of cooperatives, was convinced that small farmers could succeed if they had access to technology and markets.
Indian leaders hailed him as a visionary who empowered hundreds of thousands of dairy farmers and turned the nation into the world’s largest milk producer, ending chronic shortages.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Mr. Kurien had engineered a ‘‘white revolution.’’
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Mr. Kurien, who studied engineering at Michigan State University in the United States, returned to India soon after it won independence from Britain in 1947 and began working in its dairy industry.
At the time, Indian farmers traveled long distances to sell milk that often spoiled during the journey because of a lack of refrigeration.
Mr. Kurien set up a large milk cooperative in Gujarat State that allowed small-scale dairy farmers to pool their resources and sell their products under a single brand. The cooperative, Amul, has grown into one of the country’s best-known brands.
Later, as head of the National Dairy Development Board, he replicated that model across the country to eventually include 10 million milk producers in a network of 96,000 dairy cooperatives.
Yoginder Alagh, an economist, said Mr. Kurien showed that milk production did not need to be done on a large scale if small farmers banded together.
He won three of the nation’s top awards for his achievements in bringing milk to the people of his country, despite his own personal tastes.
He did not like milk.