By Vijay Paul Sharma, Kalpesh Kumar, Raj Vir Singh

This paper contributes to the literature on the impacts of the changing dairy market structures in India at farm level. The strategic issue, which this paper addresses, is: what has been the response of smallholder producers and processors to changing modern dairy supply chains in India?
More specifically, our research questions are:

· ‘What are the determinants of smallholder dairy farmer participation in modern supply chains?'

Key hypotheses to be tested include;

· small‐scale and poor producers are often excluded from the modern market channels;

· market infrastructure, incentives, and risks have significant effects upon farmers' marketing decisions and choices; and

· institutional factors such as farmers' associations facilitate their participation in modern marketing chains.

· ‘What is the impact of this participation on smallholder producers' growth in terms of farmers' income, production, technology choices, etc.?'

The major hypotheses to be tested is;

· farmers' marketing choices significantly impact their income, scale of operation/herd size, and technology adoption.

The analysis presented in this paper is based primarily on interviews with key informants in the organized private, public, cooperative and unorganized milk processing and marketing sector and data from a survey of 390 dairy producers.