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Tough, uncertain days ahead for dairy farmers

By Zhu Zhe and Cui Xiaohuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-15 07:59

ZHENGDING, Hebei: Dairy farmer Xing Lingqun should have been thrilled last week when one of his cows gave birth to a calf and began to produce milk. But he was not.

"No one wants our milk now. The more milk we produce, the more losses we suffer," said the 61-year-old dairy farmer, who raises 11 cows in nearby Xingjiazhuang village, where 80 percent of the residents are surnamed Xing. "We're desperate."

Since the baby formula produced by the Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group was found tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical, about four weeks ago, the milking station in Xing's village has stopped accepting any raw milk. Melamine-laced baby formula has caused the deaths of four infants and kidney stones in 53,000 others.

Xing Zhanchun at his dairy farm in Zhengding, Hebei province, on Oct 9. Xing, 57, faces an uncertain future amid a nationwide scandal involving tainted dairy products and plans to sell his two cows to pay for his son's marriage. [China Daily]

The chemical has been found in nearly every kind of dairy product in the country. As a result, sales of milk have plunged since mid September. Sales of dairy products have started to recover nationwide, except in Hebei, where the melamine contamination of dairy products was the worst.

Besides the youngest victims of the contamination, dairy farmers such as Xing have become the latest hit by the scandal.

Xing said he is now selling his raw milk for 1 to 1.5 yuan (15 to 22 cents) per kg to local villagers, less than half of what the milking station paid. "Even so, we still have to dump out the milk sometimes," he added.

Xing now earns a bit more than 100 yuan ($15) a day. He is losing money because the feed alone costs 200 yuan ($30) a day, he said.

To stem his losses, another dairy farmer in the village recently sold his cow to the slaughterhouse for about 6,000 yuan ($878), Xing said.

"I'm not willing to sell my cows yet. They are good cows and some can produce 60 to 70 kg of milk a day," he said. "I'll wait for a bit longer, but if things don't improve soon, I may have no other choice but to sell my cows."

The plight of dairy farmers have become so serious that authorities now fear that if they are forced to slaughter their cows, it will trigger a collapse of the mainland dairy industry.

Official figures from Hebei show that from Sept 14 to 16, about 5,900 tons of raw milk were dumped because major dairy companies stopped buying fresh supplies. Similar cases have been reported in all the major milk-producing regions in the country.

Last Thursday, the central government set aside 300 million yuan ($43.9 million) in subsidies for dairy farmers. According to the Ministry of Health, the subsidies will mainly go to dairy farmers who suffered the greatest financial losses in the five major dairy-producing provinces of Hebei, Liaoning, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan, as well as the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The ministry has also asked local governments to increase their subsidies to dairy farmers and to urge dairy companies to continue buying milk as long as supplies meet quality standards.

Some farmers may not be able to wait until these policies take effect. "The only subsidy I've gotten so far is 200 yuan for a cow," said another dairy farmer, Xing Zhanchun.

The 57-year-old said he is now willing to sell his cows and three female calves to cut his losses. He also needs money quickly for his only son's wedding.

"Other than selling them, the only way to cut my losses is to feed them less in order to reduce the amount of milk they produce," Xing Zhanchun said. "We even make our steamed buns with the fresh milk now."

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