The area close to Hangzhou in Eastern China was full of the typical tiny farms the Farmers Weekly Tour Group had seen elsewhere in the country. Small plots featured vegetables, asparagus, lettuces and so on and many of those who grew them were out hoeing and watering despite the fact that this week is a public holiday in China.
How could a 1,200 cow dairy exist in such a district we wondered? Suddenly there in front of us were long open sided cattle sheds together with barns full of hay and bags of fodder. What we had not expected was that the entire milking operation would be set on just 7.5ha and that all the 5,000 tonnes of feed required would be brought in from outside.
Questioned on this the manager admitted that the transport costs of bringing hay and corn 3,000 km from northern China was as much as the value of the feed. He also admitted that the value of the milk produced at the equivalent of 15p to 16p per litre was barely enough to leave a profit. But the owners of the intensive dairy farm were the same Chinese people that owned a bottling plant a few miles away and they had set it up three years ago with the intention of serving the growing needs of the prosperous Hangzhou region comprising some six million consumers. Presumably the retail operation made up for modest returns from producing milk. Although the members of the party were intrigued to learn that the ex farm price was so low because of over-production. We thought that sounded familiar.
It also fascinated us to discover that the main protein elements of the feed for the cows were maize, a synthetic protein (probably urea but translation proved difficult) and meat and bone meal. We could only assume BSE has not been a factor in China so far.
The cows were tied by the neck 24 hours a day with their feed brought to them and 40 of the 70 staff wheeled mobile milking units behind them milking four cows at a time three times a day. Yields were claimed to be somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 litres per year depending who you spoke to. Our judgement would have favoured the lower end of that range.
Viability was clearly questionable but the operation was responding to a local need and it was very clean and obviously well managed.
Yeterday in the Guilin area of southern China we had seen a co-operative venture involving and entire village growing top fruit such as strawberries and dessert grapes. Here again the quality of the goods was excellent as was the management. There was a DIY element as well as ready picked retail and people from the local city were flocking there to buy the goods.
Sadly these were isolated examples of free enterprise among a pretty depressed farming sector of the Chinese population. And they were successful mainly because of their proximity to centres of population. But perhaps it is a start on which others can build. In any case we wished those involved well.