Donkey farming industry calls for equal treatment with cattle and sheep

The first China Donkey Industry Development Conference was held on November 23 in Dong'e, Shandong, and “donkey treatment” once again became a hot topic among donkey practitioners in Shandong, Henan, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and other places, who once again called for securing for donkeys the same treatment as pigs, cattle and sheep.

In early 2015, at the Shandong provincial “Two Sessions,” a proposal titled "On Expanding the Scope of Grass-Fed Livestock from Cattle and Sheep to Donkeys" by Qin Yufeng, a provincial people's congress deputy, was hailed by the media as the “donkey proposal” and became a focus of public opinion. Securing equal treatment for donkeys alongside cattle and sheep instantly became the shared wish of donkey farmers, donkey product enterprises, and related animal husbandry experts and scholars across the country.

At the first China Donkey Industry Development Conference held in Dong'e, Shandong, representatives of donkey meat producers, donkey milk processors and ejiao (donkey-hide gelatin) producers jointly stated that the shortage of donkeys has caused across-the-board price increases in raw materials for donkey products, drawing widespread complaints from consumers. Delegates at the China Donkey Industry Development Conference called for raising “donkey treatment” and increasing the number of donkeys raised upstream, as the only way to fundamentally break through the industry bottleneck.

Coincidentally, Qin Yufeng, who had proposed the “donkey proposal” at the Shandong Provincial People's Congress early in the year, was elected by a high vote on the 22nd as the first president of the Donkey Industry Branch of the China Animal Agriculture Association. In less than a year, this people's congress deputy who fought for treatment for donkeys was crowned by his peers as the national “Donkey King.” At the election site, Qin Yufeng declared to donkey industry colleagues nationwide that his greatest goal during his term was the overall rapid development of the donkey industry, and that he would work tirelessly to secure for donkeys the same national farming subsidy treatment as pigs, cattle and sheep, push the government to pay more attention to donkey farming, and create a replicable, efficient donkey farming model.

⟦NL> Yu Baojun, banner chief of Aohan Banner in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, told a China News Service reporter on June 16 this year at the National Modern Animal Husbandry Construction Work Conference that Aohan Banner, whose main business is grass-fed livestock farming, has six main livestock farming industries, and that industries such as cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens now all have clear policy support, while donkeys and geese alone still have no clear national policy support. If the state gives preferential policy support, the donkey industry will certainly develop and become a truly prosperity-enhancing industry for the people.

“From the proposal of the ‘donkey proposal’ at the Shandong Two Sessions in early 2015 to the establishment of the Donkey Industry Branch of the China Animal Agriculture Association in November, donkeys have continued to advance on the road to winning equal status with cattle and sheep.” He Xintian, vice president of the China Animal Agriculture Association, said that developing grass-fed animal husbandry is one of China's main strategies for adjusting its agricultural structure; cattle, sheep and donkeys all belong to grass-fed animal husbandry; the donkey industry is currently still in its initial stage, and its inventory is still declining at a rate of 3.5% per year. Meanwhile, market demand for donkey products has surged with the arrival of the era of great health, with supply falling short of demand. Under these two major circumstances, the establishment of the Donkey Industry Branch plays an important role in expanding the scale of donkey farming, strengthening epidemic disease prevention and control, accelerating integration among the three major industries, and reversing the transformation and upgrading of the donkey industry.

Although the state has not yet issued unified relevant subsidy policies, some local governments in Shandong, Hebei, Inner Mongolia and other places have been unable to hold back and have taken the lead in introducing local policies to support donkey farming. Through interviews, the reporter learned that relevant departments in Shandong Province are currently formulating the province's “13th Five-Year” development plan, which will strongly support the farming industry. Among other things, Shandong Province plans for the province's total output value of donkey farming to reach 40 billion yuan by 2020, with a donkey inventory of 1 million base female donkeys, 18,000 family farms with 5-50 female donkeys, and 4,000 farms with a scale of a thousand head, and plans to allocate funds to focus on supporting key industry links such as subsidies for expanding the herd of base female donkeys, construction of improved breed farms, frozen semen subsidies, family farms with 5-50 base female donkeys, large-scale farms, donkey farming cooperatives, and straw-based donkey farming.

Mang Lai, vice president of Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, said that local policies are ultimately just a drop in the bucket, and he hopes the newly established donkey industry association can leverage collective strength to call for the introduction of relevant national policies.

From the first proposal of the “donkey proposal” at the Shandong “Two Sessions” to the renewed voices on “donkey treatment” at the National Modern Animal Husbandry Construction Work Conference on June 16, and now to “donkey treatment” becoming the common call of the whole industry at today's National Donkey Industry Development Conference, China's donkey industry has fully awakened and won high attention from people inside and outside the industry and from the government. Multiple experts attending the National Donkey Industry Development Conference predicted that a national policy of “equal treatment” with cattle and sheep now has everything ready except the east wind.