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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

After the baby formula scandal broke, Sanlu blamed dairy farmers, accusing them of mixing melamine into the raw milk. Farmers insist that they have never used the chemical and say regulatory loopholes are part of the problem.

"I've never heard of melamine before the scandal," Xing Lingqun said. "We took our cows directly to the milking station, where they were milked by machine. There's no way for us to mix anything into the milk."

"I believe the real culprits are milking station operators," he added.

Xing Zhanchun said he thought quality control officers should be held accountable as well.

Hebei police have detained 31 people suspected of producing or mixing melamine into raw milk. Another six have been arrested on similar charges. The majority worked at milking stations.

Government figures show that 72 milking stations in Hebei have been shut down for failing to meet quality control standards. The Ministry of Agriculture has ordered a nationwide inspection of such stations and has required all milking stations to register with local supervisory authorities.

In an effort to help dairy farmers, Hebei's provincial government is encouraging individual farmers to send their cows to large dairy farms, which can feed them and sell their milk.

"We've received about 60 cows from individual farmers," said Jin Lidong, manager of the Jinhe dairy farm in Zhengding county of Shijiazhuang.

"It's easier for us to sell the milk as we have contracts with the big dairy companies."

By last weekend, 24,000 of 97,000 cows raised by individual farmers in Hebei have been sent to such farms, according to government figures, but officials have yet to decide what to do in the long term.

Even the large dairy farms have had to dump some their milk as dairy companies have tightened their standards.

Jin's farm lost two batches of milk on Sept 30 and Oct 1, which milk giant Mengniu refused when a certain amount of antibiotics was found in the fresh milk.

A notice on the wall of the milking station at Jinhe warned staff to monitor the source of all milk closely, since "Mengniu's new standards are extremely strict, and we've suffered great losses".

Most experts believe that the solution to the problem of quality of dairy products is to operate large modern dairy farms.

"The industry's present structure is to blame for the melamine scandal, because it's hard for dairy companies to monitor the quality of raw milk," said Wang Dingmian, a China Dairy Association official.

The bottom rung of the domestic dairy industry is now made up of a large number of individual dairy farmers who raise just a few cows in their backyards. Above them is a chain of middlemen, including dairy agents and milking stations. At the top are the dairy companies, Wang said.

"An underlying factor is the gap between insufficient supply and the enormous market demand for milk," Wang added.

In the first half of the year, 19 million tons of dairy products were produced, according to the association. The milk for those products was provided by 2 million farmers, who raise about 14.3 million cows across the country.

Chen Junshi, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Nutrition and Food Safety, has also criticized small family dairy farms and poor technical know-how among individual farmers as the fundamental reasons behind the lack of quality.

"The only way out is to develop large-scale modern farms," he said.

However, to dairy farmers like Xing Lingqun, giving up their cows is a difficult and painful choice. "I've been raising cows for about 20 years. I don't know what to do if I sell my cows," he said.

He is not even willing to place his cows temporarily in a large dairy farm. "I went to see the farm. There are so many cows there, it's easy to spread illness. What if my cows get sick there?"

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