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The growing Chinese dairy industry

China has been working to build its domestic dairy industry in an effort to supply at least some of the growing demand. Dr. Dan Undersander is a forage specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he has been working with the Chinese to grow and feed better forages. He says they buy a lot of alfalfa from the United States; they like the consistent, verified quality and the low-cost transportation. Many of the containers used to ship Chinese products to the United States are loaded with alfalfa for the return trip.

Undersander says the Chinese dairy industry is growing; there are a number of 100-to-200-cow dairies in central Mongolia but the real growth is along the Pacific Coast where operations up to 130,000 cows have been built. However, production per cow is about half of what it is in the U.S. because of the lack of good-quality forages. He says for one thing, Chinese farmers do not have access to farm information from radio and newspapers like the U.S. Another factor is that while China covers about the same amount of land as the U.S., only about 15 percent of the land is productive.

In the end, Undersander does not think China will be able to meet its growing demand for dairy in the foreseeable future and will need to continue to import. This is also why they are looking to buy dairy farms outside their country; earlier this week it was reported two Chinese are buying controlling interest in Australia’s largest dairy operation.

Undersander talks about the Chinese dairy industry: