Wang Dingmian

Consumers should get good quality milk

The national dairy safety standards issued last year are among the worst in the world. Nada Mude, secretary general of the Dairy Association in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, has said: "The aim of the new standards is to respect reality and protect the interest of small- and medium-sized milk farmers."

So can we produce milk with high protein content under the existing conditions?

If cows are fed enough high-quality pasture grass, the protein content in their milk will increase. And if the authorities raise the standard and prices of milk, dairy farmers can earn more, which, in turn, will prompt them to maintain the quality of their products. This circular arrangement is unlikely to fail.

Some people say cattle farmers cannot produce high-quality milk because of the poor sanitary conditions on the farms. But the fact is that dairy companies rather than farmers are responsible for the high bacteria count in milk. It is the responsibility of dairy companies to reduce bacteria during processing and packaging. The bacteria count is about 5,000 to 10,000 per milliliter after milking. The count increases to 2 million per milliliter during processing and packaging. The reason for the geometrical multiplication of bacteria is the human factor, which can be minimized if farmers cover their containers with ice while delivering the milk at collection centers.

One would have expected dairy farmers' earnings to go up after the authorities raised the permissible bacteria count in 1 milliliter from 500,000 to 2 million last year and lowered the protein content from 2.95 grams to 2.80 grams per 100 gram of milk. But even a year after the new standards were issued that has not happened. On the contrary, it has harmed the farmers.

The demand for dairy products in China is increasing, but farmers have to pour thousands of liters of milk into rivers and even slaughter their cows after dairy companies refuse to buy it. This shows that rising demand does not necessarily mean a better income for cattle farmers, because many consumers no longer have confidence in domestic dairy products and prefer imported products regardless of their high prices.

Without consumers' trust, milk can only be sold at a lower price or thrown away. A dairy farmer told me last week that the price of 1 kilogram of raw milk had dropped to 1.2 yuan ($0.19) and even touched 0.8 yuan, which is barely enough to meet the feed and labor costs.

Dairy companies are the only ones that stand to gain from the lower standards of milk. If standards are low, farmers can buy lower quality feed and thus afford to sell milk at lower prices. This will help big dairy companies, for they can buy low-priced milk in larger quantities and dominate the market by selling their products at lower prices. The larger a company's scale, the more profit it would make.

Before the new quality standards were issued, some experts conducted surveys and use their results to suggest that the standards should be raised. But the opposite happened, possibly because dairy giants were at work behind the scene.

Not all Chinese consumers know that liquid milk sold in China is of two types: pasteurized and unpasteurized or untreated. The former is common in developed countries, while the latter dominates the Chinese market.

The use of unpasteurized raw milk to make dairy products will not only compromise the flavor and nutrition, but also will jeopardize the safety of the product - something that we see now. In a country where unpasteurized milk dominates the market, low dairy products' standards are understandable. But that does not mean consumers do not have the right to get good quality milk.

The author is chairman of the Dairy Association of Guangzhou. The article first appeared in People's Daily.