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Australia-China Agricultural Cooperation Agreement Milk Mission
to China,
August 2000
Objectives
This mission had three major objectives
To explore the avalible sources, both local and Australian, of milk for proposed school milk programs (SMPs) in China.
To pursue cooperation between Australian dairy companies and relevant Chinese government agencies as well as dairy sectors in milk processing and supply, especially for proposed SMPs in China.
To strengthen established linkages between the Australian and Chinese institutions and to expand them to relevant agriculture and dairy processing sectors.
Major conclusions
Milk available for consumption in China is only about 7 kg per capita total population per year.
Future milk needs for the entire Chinese population are about 60 kg per capita per year, based on the national nutritional recommendations and current food consumption patterns.
A universal SMP to supply 200 million children would require 41.2 kg milk per child per year, a total of 8,245 ktonnes per year, more than current total production of less than 6,000 ktonnes per year.
The proposed SMP would need 40,000 million 200 ml packages of UHT milk per year; thus requiring 1000 aseptic packaging lines for 200 ml package production, considerably more than the current 50 aseptic packaging lines (all sizes).
Imports would be needed to supply a universal Chinese SMP; no one country alone would be able to fulfill these needs.
Supply of sachets of full cream milk powder to be reconstituted at point of consumption would be only one-third of the cost of supplying equivalent amounts as UHT liquid milk.
Improving milk quality would only improve overall productivity by around 5%.
Improving yields of existing Chinese herds to the world average, would roughly treble existing annual cow milk production.
Research and technical cooperation would be mostly feasible in product development and quality control for SMP products. Official support and seed funding by agencies in both countries would be needed.
Further cooperation between Australian and Chinese dairy industries and research & training institutions will be pursued by means of joint seminars, exchange visits, and collaborative research and training. |
