Dairy industry in China is transforming
CHINA - Small farms are on way out; big ones becoming more hygienic, efficient.For a country with more than a billion people, China's dairy industry is small by Western standards. In many areas, Holstein cows are still treated poorly - chained to posts and fed food scraps on manure-lined streets.
Some of the smallest farms have about five cows, and they're still milked by hand. The unpasteurized milk is consumed by the farmers' families or sold locally.
But that's rapidly changing, Teng said, as the Chinese government makes dairy farming a top priority and builds modern, huge farms with thousands of cows.
The industry is being transformed from milk in plastic buckets to hygienic, efficient systems using the latest technologies from Wisconsin.
More than 700 model dairy farms have been established around Beijing and Tianjin, with 280,000 cows, according to the Chinese government. Plans are in the works for hundreds of other similar farms, and there are plans to speed up the use of selected dairy genetics.
Source: jsonline.com