TL;DR
Amul, the world’s largest dairy cooperative, has launched an AI platform called Sarlaben that gives 3.6 million farmers personalised, round-the-clock guidance on cattle health, feeding and breeding. The system is built on five decades of cooperative data covering 30 million cattle and two billion annual milk transactions.
AI meets the last mile
The platform — launched ahead of India’s AI Impact Summit 2026 and backed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology — represents one of the largest real-world AI deployments in agriculture. Unlike most agri-tech ventures that collect data first and build products second, Amul already had the data. Its Automatic Milk Collection System processes over two billion milk procurement transactions annually, while veterinary records from more than 1,200 doctors cover nearly 30 million cattle.
Sarlaben is accessible via the Amul Farmer mobile app (over one million Android and iOS downloads) and through voice calls for farmers using feature phones or landlines. The system offers cattle-specific guidance — from disease detection to feeding schedules — drawing on individual animal records that include feed intake, disease history and milking status.
“Amul AI is about taking dependable, verified information directly to the farmer — instantly and in a language they are comfortable with,” said Jayen Mehta, Managing Director of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation.
India’s productivity problem
India produces more milk than any country — 347.87 million tonnes in 2024-25, more than double the US output — but its per-animal yield remains among the lowest globally. The reasons are structural: small herd sizes, poor-quality feed, limited rural veterinary access, and low awareness of modern husbandry practices.
The platform is initially available in Gujarati and built on the government’s Bhashini multilingual framework, which could extend support to 20 Indian languages across Amul’s presence in 20,000 villages in 20 states.
The cooperative advantage
Saswata Narayan Biswas, Director of the Institute of Rural Management in Anand, described the deployment as “not a technology upgrade, but an instrument of inclusive rural transformation.” The cooperative’s five-decade data infrastructure — covering breeding records, satellite imagery for fodder mapping, and a national cattle census — gives the AI a foundation that most private agri-tech startups would struggle to replicate.
Looking forward
The harder question is reach. Farmers already comfortable with smartphones and Amul’s digital systems will benefit first. Whether voice-based access and dialect support can close the gap for the most isolated producers — those with the greatest information deficit — will determine if this is a genuine shift in rural farming or a tool that primarily serves those already connected.