Post
Iowa soybean leaders get closer look at China’s dairy industry
Iowa Soybean Association leaders visited the Fuyuan Shihan Farm near Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia in China. The farm, built in early 2013, has 4,000 Holsteins and Jerseys and is part of China’s growing dairy industry.
Leaders of the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) recently returned from a trade mission to China, where they took a closer look at that nation’s growing dairy industry.
Grant Kimberley, market development director for ISA, says China is working to expand its dairy industry. Currently, he says, there are about 14 million cows providing milk in China.
“If you want to compare that to the U.S., I think the numbers are in the low- to mid-20 million range for cows in the dairy sector,” Kimberley says. “So they still have a lot of room to grow as they continue to increase consumption of milk in the Chinese diet.”
Kimberley says current dairy consumption per capita in China is around 18 to 20 kilograms—or about 42 pounds—of dairy products per year.
“The projections by some of the industry contacts that we have is that that would double and get to, at least, up to 40 kilograms of dairy products in the next ten years,” he says. “So that’s good for dairy consumption and that’s good for soy consumption, because you will see increased usage of soy and bypass soybean meal in the dairy feed rations.”
AUDIO: Grant Kimberley (2:32 MP3)
The Iowa group visited a dairy farm and milk processing plant in the province of Inner Mongolia, facilities that ISA president Brian Kemp describes as “state of the art”.
Add Comment