Small lambs prop up a big industry in Haibei Prefecture, Qinghai
People on the plateau often jokingly say that the sheep of Qinghai eat cordyceps and drink mineral water. This humorous description precisely captures the brand value of the lambs of Haibei Prefecture, Qinghai. After several years of scientific and technological innovation, Haibei Prefecture has successfully explored a comprehensive supporting technology for efficient breeding of Tibetan ewes with a "three births in two years" cycle, and has carried out demonstration and promotion, opening the path of transformation and upgrading for the development of modern ecological animal husbandry on the Qinghai Plateau, and also laying a solid technical foundation for the development of the "lamb economy."
It is understood that Haibei Prefecture currently has a natural grassland area of 39.72 million mu, of which the usable grassland area is 35.788 million mu. The livestock inventory reaches 3.27 million head, including 2.73 million sheep, with the proportion of breeding ewes reaching 62.9%, and 1.6 million lambs born alive annually. More than 600,000 lambs are sold each year, accounting for 70% of the total number of mutton sheep sold, with an annual output of more than 9,000 tons of lamb meat.
You Haihong, director of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau of Haibei Prefecture, said: "Lamb meat production is the main method of mutton production in developed countries and regions with an advanced animal husbandry industry. Haibei Prefecture started relatively early in carrying out lamb meat production. Since we have such resource advantages, we should not fall behind others. We must make full and rational use of them and turn this into a truly prosperity-enhancing industry for the people."
Zhou Yuqing, a senior veterinarian at the Haibei Prefecture Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science Research Institute, said that over the two years since the implementation of the "three births in two years" project, 10 demonstration households with 2,000 ewes produced a total of 5,894 lambs over three births in two years, with a birth-and-survival rate of 96.9% per birth. Moreover, the lambs' birth weight, weaning weight and 6-month-old slaughter weight all increased considerably, achieving an average annual income increase of 66,600 yuan per household.
This year, Haibei Prefecture produced more than 110,000 lambs in total through the efficient breeding technology of Tibetan sheep with "three births in two years," and the 6-month-old lambs, whose weight is close to that of adult sheep, were all sent to market in July.
The big industry propped up by small lambs in Haibei Prefecture relies not only on natural resource advantages and technological advantages, but of course also on a group of powerful leading enterprises in livestock product processing. At present, a group of livestock product processing enterprises with Qinghai Xiahua Halal Meat Food Co., Ltd. at the core have established or acted as agents for more than 50 direct-sales stores of Haibei beef and mutton in Shandong, Zhejiang, Ningxia, Guangdong, Gansu and other provinces and cities, and have signed supply agreements with many businesses such as Walmart supermarkets, Hualian supermarkets and Yinzuo supermarkets.
Li Shoujia, general manager of Qinghai Xiahua Halal Meat Food Co., Ltd., said that on the basis of selling carcass meat, the company will focus on developing high-end products such as Haibei ecological lamb butterfly chops and cooked lamb meat series, so as to enhance the added value of Haibei lamb meat; at the same time, it is committed to building the Haibei lamb meat brand, so that the market value that Haibei lamb meat delicacies deserve can be reflected, gradually forming a sound mechanism of "cultivating famous brands, developing famous brands, publicizing famous brands and protecting famous brands," and exploring an innovative development path of "strengthening agriculture through brands and enriching farmers through brands" for modern ecological animal husbandry on the plateau.
Our reporter Gao Jinliang