Shell Foundation and Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives partner to improve dairy incomes for smallholder farmers in Maharashtra

Gender Scale Partnerships Smallholder Farmers India Cold Storage

Maharashtra, India / London, United Kingdom, July 24, 2026 — Shell Foundation, the UK-registered charity empowering underserved customers to raise their incomes while lowering emissions, today announced a new partnership with Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (Clnl) to help smallholder dairy farmers in Maharashtra access premium markets, improve milk quality and build more reliable incomes.

Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives, an associate organisation of Tata Trusts, works to improve quality of life in rural and tribal regions across central India, including Maharashtra, through community-led institutions, women’s collectives and micro entrepreneurs. Its work spans livelihoods, water, sanitation and hygiene, education, sports, and health and nutrition.

The partnership is designed to bring premium markets closer to smallholder dairy farmers through energy-enabled dairy infrastructure, reducing the time and cost of reaching collection points while ensuring high-quality milk and traceability. Through the programme, Shell Foundation and CInI are supporting village-level milk chilling infrastructure, quality assaying equipment and tools for early disease detection, pregnancy detection, etc, alongside focused trainings and access to better inputs and services. By strengthening the link between farmers and formal dairy markets, the partnership aims to enable smallholder farmers to receive higher prices for higher-quality milk. Early work under the partnership has supported 65 bulk chilling centres equipped with cold chain, quality assaying and digital traceability solutions, with direct bank linkages designed to support more transparent payments to farmers.

Govind Dairy is a Shell Foundation commercial dairy partner that guarantees milk offtake at fair and transparent prices depending on the quality parameters. Working with Clnl, Govind Dairy introduces village-level Milk Chilling Units with several units operated by women entrepreneurs, enabling women to sell milk directly at collection centres and receive payments directly into their own bank accounts. This enables women to realise the economic benefits of dairy production, as they already play a central role in livestock care and daily milking. The programme is supporting a cadre of 25 women micro-entrepreneurs to provide animal nutrition and healthcare products and services to farmers, helping create livelihood opportunities for these women while improving last-mile access to quality inputs for dairy households. The programme is fully funded by the Shell Foundation, as part of a broader partnership with the UK government via the Catalysing Agriculture by Scaling Energy Ecosystems (CASEE) programme.

Commenting on the partnership:

“

Dairy has a huge potential to enable farmers, particularly women, to raise their incomes, when the right combination of markets, energy-enabled infrastructure and local enterprise is in place. This partnership with Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives and Govind Dairy is about bringing the market closer to farmers, improving the quality and value of milk, and making sure more women can participate directly in the income generated. In partnership with the UK Government, we are testing a model that enables these customers to raise their income today while building evidence for wider scale across dairy value chains.

Jonathan Berman

CEO of Shell Foundation

“

The core focus for CInI as an organisation is to strengthen the livelihood layer at the household level and empower the leadership of women members. This partnership with Shell Foundation and Govind Dairy is a unique partnership which looks at the dairy based livelihood with the overall value chain perspective empowering and strengthening the dairy farmers with sustainable livelihoods. The pilot has a strong opportunity to scale across the dairy ecosystem with focus on women farmers.

Sirshendu Paul

Executive Director for CInI

This partnership reflects Shell Foundation’s wider focus on smallholder farmers, gender inclusion and climate-smart value chains.

About Shell Foundation

For over 25 years, Shell Foundation, an independent charity registered in England and Wales, has empowered underserved customers to raise their incomes while lowering emissions. The Foundation supports early-stage innovations; helps the best of them to reach millions of people; and de-risks capital to prove those models are commercial at scale. Across Asia and Africa, the Foundation enables resilient prosperity among three core groups of people: smallholder farmers, transporters, and micro-entrepreneurs. Find out more at https://shellfoundation.org/

About the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

The FCDO is the UK government department responsible for diplomacy, international development and consular services, working to promote British interests and tackle global challenges worldwide. The FCDO’s Global Research and Technology Development (GRTD) portfolio represents the department’s research and development funding. This brings together existing research, technology, and innovation programmes and partnerships under a single identity.

About Catalysing Agriculture by Scaling Energy Ecosystems (CASEE)

CASEE is a match-funded partnership between Shell Foundation and FCDO, with both organisations contributing equally to support innovative businesses and market enablers that improve the productivity, resilience and incomes of smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. As of September 2025, CASEE-supported partners had enabled 829,690 farmers to access energy-related products, technologies or services and had leveraged £229 million in additional finance, helping to scale climate-smart agricultural solutions and strengthen food systems. The programme also generates practical evidence and learning to inform more effective approaches to agricultural innovation and investment.