Hebei Goes All Out to Build a Demonstration Province for the Revitalization of China's Dairy Industry
The dairy industry is an important part of modern agriculture and the most dynamic and promising sector in China's livestock farming. It bears on the national economy and people's livelihood and on the future of the nation. The Outline of the National 13th Five-Year Plan explicitly calls for advancing agricultural modernization and promoting the quality and safe development of the dairy industry. On August 26 this year, the 2016 China Dairy D20 Summit and Dairy Industry Revitalization Conference was held in Shijiazhuang. Hebei will sign strategic cooperation agreements with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and the China Food and Drug Administration to jointly build a demonstration province for dairy industry revitalization. Hebei will take this opportunity to vigorously advance supply-side structural reform in the dairy industry, accelerate the building of a modern dairy industry system, and comprehensively enhance the competitiveness of Hebei's dairy industry.
Hebei is a traditional major dairy province, with abundant resource endowments, a unique locational advantage and a long history of development. The "melamine" incident in 2008 dealt a heavy blow to Hebei's dairy industry and even to China's dairy industry. Over the past 8 years, in the face of painful lessons, Hebei's dairy industry has achieved a tremendous transformation from devastation to stability, from stability to consolidation, and from consolidation to moving toward revitalization. At present, Hebei's dairy industry has taken on a completely new look. Its comprehensive production capacity, industrial competitiveness and quality and safety levels have risen substantially. Its scale and standardized dairy cattle farming is the highest in the country, and the facilities, equipment and intelligent level of dairy farms are first-rate nationwide. Its dairy product output ranks first in the country, and its infant formula production capacity growth rate ranks first in the country. The Hebei Sanyuan infant formula brand has won first place in the national milk powder industry public opinion and reputation survey for 3 consecutive years. On August 8, Junlebao infant formula officially entered the Hong Kong, China market for sale, which was the first export of China's infant formula.
Holding Firm to the Bottom Line of Quality and Safety
Restoring Consumer Confidence in the Dairy Industry
For dairy enterprises, trust comes from quality, and quality and safety are the lifeline that must be firmly safeguarded. Hebei once witnessed the fall of a domestic dairy giant, so it understands the importance of quality and safety even more deeply and longs even more to reshape the image of China's dairy industry. Since 2008, Hebei has consistently placed quality and safety at the core, started with supply-side structural reform, vigorously implemented a dairy safety strategy, used quality improvement to drive dairy industry transformation, and truly shifted the focus of development from increasing quantity and expanding scale to quality and safety.
Hebei has established a raw milk monitoring system based on the "most rigorous standards, most stringent regulation, most severe penalties and most serious accountability," and has innovated and improved monitoring methods: it has worked to improve the regulatory network, establishing a three-tier regulatory system with the province as the main body, cities as the backbone and counties as the foundation, increased investment in monitoring, equipped monitoring devices, improved monitoring methods and raised monitoring frequency, with the pass rate for testing prohibited additives such as melamine remaining at 100% for 8 consecutive years; it has worked to strengthen the whole-process monitoring chain, extending quality and safety to all links across the entire industrial chain, establishing a dairy product risk monitoring and quality traceability system from source to end product and from pasture to table, with responsibility assigned to every enterprise, every workshop, every milk station and every employee, leaving no blind spots in whole-process monitoring; and it has worked to innovate online regulatory methods, establishing an online video regulatory platform for raw milk purchasing stations, installing cameras at key points such as milking rooms, milk storage rooms and loading areas at milk stations, equipping monitoring devices, and achieving 24-hour, panoramic full-process internet monitoring. GPS positioning systems have been installed on raw milk transport vehicles, transport routes have been designated, and the level of regulation has been greatly improved, putting Hebei at the forefront nationwide.
At present, the negative impact of the "melamine" incident has not been completely eliminated, some consumers still have doubts about the quality and safety of domestic milk powder, and restoring confidence in domestic milk powder remains a long and arduous task. Hebei will continue to follow the "four strictest" requirements, further strengthen regulatory measures, raise the quality and safety level of the dairy industry, take the lead in establishing the brand of high-quality and safe domestic dairy products, raise consumer confidence, strive to be a "defender of conscience milk, trustworthy milk and low-price milk in China," and work to open a new future for China's dairy industry through a transformation based on quality and safety.
Building First-Class Milk Source Bases
Consolidating the Foundation of Survival and Development
Milk sources are the foundation of dairy industry development. In order to fundamentally solve the problem of milk source safety, Hebei started with milk source bases at the source, accelerated the improvement of the scale and standardization level of dairy cattle farming, and achieved a transformation from traditional farming to standardized farming, from quantitative growth to quality improvement, and from loose cooperation to industrial linkage.
Since 2008, Hebei has benchmarked international quality standards and advanced feeding methods, focused on key links such as dairy cattle farming, milk station management, and forage and feed, and worked to build first-class milk source bases, initially forming a sound situation of "building good barns, planting good grass, breeding good stock, raising good cows and producing good milk." In milk station construction, it strictly implemented the "five haves and one compliance" standard and completely shut down 1,558 substandard milk stations; in dairy cattle farming, it vigorously promoted scaled farming, with all free-range dairy cattle brought into centralized feeding on farms, and the province's scaled farming rate reached 100%, 45 percentage points higher than the national average, among which farms (zones) with more than 300 head accounted for 98% of the herd; in fine breed selection and breeding, it fully implemented improved dairy cattle breeding and established a domestically first-class dairy cattle performance testing center; and in adjusting the planting structure, it seized the opportunity of pilot comprehensive treatment of groundwater overexploitation and vigorously developed high-quality forage grass. At the same time, it took the lead nationwide in implementing a long-term mechanism for linking dairy industry interests, carrying out long-term contract purchasing and planned synchronous development between dairy enterprises and farms, and launching a provincial-level raw milk price coordination mechanism, effectively safeguarding the lawful rights and interests of dairy enterprises and farms (zones).
In accordance with the requirements of "scaled, standardized, facility-based and intensive" development, Hebei will continue to vigorously develop circular farming and green farming that combine crop cultivation and livestock breeding, further advance the transformation of dairy cattle farming communities into pastures, encourage dairy processing enterprises to build stable and controllable self-owned milk source bases, comprehensively implement information-based management of dairy farms, and strive to create a brand of high-quality milk source bases in Hebei.
Strengthening Leading Dairy Enterprises
Advancing Innovative and Transformative Development
Enterprises are the main actors in dairy industry development, and leading dairy enterprises are the backbone of the revitalization of China's dairy industry. Hebei regards making dairy enterprises bigger and stronger as an effective lever for building a strong dairy province, persists in making coordinated efforts both internally and externally, actively introduces well-known domestic enterprises, makes great efforts to strengthen local enterprises, and continuously expands the scale and strength of Hebei's dairy enterprises.
On the one hand, through preferential policies in funding, land and taxation, it has actively introduced well-known domestic leading enterprises such as Mengniu, Yili and Sanyuan to settle in Hebei, and cultivated a group of local leading dairy processing enterprises with strong growth capacity, new processes and technologies, and guaranteed quality and safety, such as Junlebao. By the end of 2015, the province had 42 dairy processing enterprises, with a daily raw milk processing capacity of 15,000 tons; dairy product output and liquid milk output were 3.46 million tons and 3.36 million tons respectively, ranking first in the country for two consecutive years. On the other hand, it accelerated the building of infant formula enterprises and reshaped its image as a major infant formula province. In September 2013, Hebei issued and implemented opinions on accelerating the development of the province's milk powder industry, planning to use 4 years to integrate and invest 1.7 billion yuan to make the province's dairy processing enterprises bigger and stronger. As soon as this document was issued, it received positive responses from many dairy processing enterprises. In just over two years, 6 infant formula enterprises with an annual output of more than 10,000 tons each were newly built, including Junlebao, Hebei Sanyuan and Flag Dairy, and the province's production capacity reached 155,000 tons, double that of 2008, achieving a historic leap in the development of Hebei's infant formula industry.
In the future, Hebei will go all out to build first-class dairy enterprises, further strengthen industrial policy guidance, give priority support to key dairy enterprises in implementing technological upgrading and capacity expansion, encourage enterprises to establish and improve modern enterprise systems, increase variety, improve quality and create brands, and strive to build 1-2 large multinational dairy enterprise groups with industry-leading standards by 2020.
Strengthening Policy Support and Guidance
Reshaping a Positive Industry Image
The dairy industry chain is long, involving multiple links such as forage and feed cultivation, dairy cattle farming, raw milk purchasing, dairy processing and sales. It requires not only the self-disciplined development of upstream and downstream enterprises, but also the support and guidance of government departments and all sectors of society. Since 2008, the state has issued and improved dairy industry laws, regulations, policies and standards. Hebei has successively formulated and implemented documents such as the Opinions on Vigorously Rectifying Dairy Industry Order and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Dairy Industry, the Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Modern Livestock Farming, and the Opinions on Accelerating the Development of the Province's Milk Powder Industry, opening green channels in areas such as milk source base construction, strengthening leading enterprises, improving the circulation system, strengthening quality regulation, enhancing financial support and safeguarding land needs, and building a relatively complete dairy industry policy system, which has provided strong impetus for the healthy development of the province's dairy industry.
In the future, Hebei will further increase support, issue more preferential policies and measures, and consolidate and enhance the sound momentum of dairy industry development. At the same time, it will actively create a favorable environment, carry out positive publicity and guidance in depth, use methods such as industrial tourism and user experience, tell brand stories well and shape a good reputation, comprehensively display the new achievements of Hebei's dairy industry development, fully demonstrate the new results of Hebei's milk source construction and quality and safety, further boost public confidence in dairy consumption, and promote the sustained and healthy development of the dairy industry.
Since 2008, Hebei Province has vigorously rectified the order of the dairy industry, resolutely strengthened quality regulation, strengthened leading dairy enterprises, and launched a series of high-value and extraordinary policy packages, focusing on advancing the second rise of Hebei's dairy industry. At present, China's dairy industry is in a period of opportunity with much to accomplish, and it also faces severe challenges of innovative development and transformation and upgrading. At the upcoming 2016 China Dairy D20 Summit, a "China Dairy Industry Revitalization Declaration" ceremony will be held to break bottlenecks, shore up weak links and raise standards, jointly build Chinese dairy brands and build a world-class dairy industry.
Zhang Qingwei
(The author is governor of Hebei Province)