China: Milk for Well-Off Society

Officials have launched a campaign to promote China's domestic dairy industry as an essential foundation of the country's all-round well-off society. One of five initiatives to revive China's dairy industry, donations of milk to students in poor rural areas were the focus of the kick-off meeting held in Beijing on February 21, 2017.

Vice Minister of Agriculture Yu Kangzhen urged attendees at the meeting to "learn from the guiding spirit" expressed by General Secretary Xi Jinping during his January 24, 2017 inspection of an infant formula factory in Hebei Province. At the inspection, Xi pronounced, "Let the motherland's next generation drink good milk powder; this is of great concern to me."

General Secretary Xi Jinping tours farm supplying milk powder factory



According to the Ministry of Agriculture Press Office, China is in a stage where it is approaching the achievement of an "all-round well-off" (xiaokang) society by 2020, and dairy consumption is one of the important indicators of rising living standards. According to Press Office's account, "A well-off society cannot be without milk, and over a billion Chinese people cannot be without their own dairy industry,"

"Revive the nation's dairy industry; serve the well-off society."

While China's dairy consumption has risen greatly, per capita consumption is still only one-third of the world average and half the Asian average. It was pointed out at the meeting that only 20 million of China's 140 million students in primary and middle school are able to drink milk. The meeting emphasized an initiative to increase school milk donations in poverty-stricken regions.

The campaign will include publicity campaigns to encourage milk consumption. Donated school milk will labeled as part of the "China well-off dairy campaign." Eighteen fluid milk products and three milk powder products valued at 55 million yuan have been chosen for distribution to 110,000 students by various Chinese companies.

This is one of five campaigns to revive the Chinese dairy industry:

1. Pasture and fodder improvement. Expand quality alfalfa production and shift land from producing corn to fodder crops.
2. Raise good cows. Develop healthy farming, including county-wide standardized, scaled-up dairy farm initiatives and efficient, green development.
3. Produce good milk. Upgrade quality and safety systems, develop quality-safety monitoring plans for fresh milk and conduct specialized remediations.
4. Create brands. Form domestic dairy brands and manage the "D20" summit of the top 20 companies.
5. Tell the dairy industry story. Develop the "well-off dairy industry" campaign, revive consumer confidence, promote dairy consumption.