In China, fast growing goat dairy sector is gaining experiences from cattle dairy models

Goat milk is getting more popular

In the world, cow dairy plays an important role for human food. However, there are also several other dairy options, such as yak, goat, sheep, and camel milk. Goat dairy increased rapidly in the past decades. By 2017, the number of milk goat, as well as goat dairy products, nearly tripled in comparison with 45 years ago. More than half of the productions came from Asia. The similar growth happened in China, the heads of milk goat increased from 5.5 million in 2008 to more than 6 million by 2018.

3.  Lower allergic risk caused by goat milk, as well as low risk of lactose intolerance, which happens on a big group of Chinese consumers.

The most important countries for goat milk production worldwide currently are India, Bangladesh and Pakistan in Asia; Spain, France and Greece in Europe; Sudan in Africa. China is still relatively small on goat milk productions.

The biggest producer of goat dairy in China: Shaanxi province

During April 11-13, West China Animal Husbandry Expo was held in Yangling Agricultural High-Tech Demonstration Zone, in Shaanxi Province. It included an important session, China Milk Goat Industry Conference, with a focus on communications of goat dairy sector. This article is based on information gathered during the Expo and is meant to clarify the situation in Chinese goat dairy sector.

In China, Shaanxi province is the biggest keeper of milk goats and biggest producer of goat dairy products, as well as taking the biggest market share in China. Some data about Shaanxi goat dairy sector in 2018.

Item	Quantity	% of China
Milk goats in stock	2.4 mln heads	38.4%
Raw goat milk production	600 thousand tons	46%
Production of processed goat dairy	98 thousand tons	85%
Milk powder production	83 thousand tons	82%
Liquid milk products	15 thousand tons	95%

The big players with the goat dairy sector are:

• Xi’an Baiyue Goat Dairy Group  (biggest goat dairy company in China, with yearly turnover nearly 2 billion RMB),
• Shandong Yangchun Dairy  (yearly turnover around 500 million RMB)
• Heilongjiang Feihe Dairy
• Shaanxi Herds Dairy Group
• Shaanxi Hongxing Meiling Dairy
• Shaanxi Qinlong Dairy
• Shaanxi Youlishi Dairy Group
• Shaanxi Shengfei Dairy Group

Demands and opportunities

In China, milk goat farms are transforming from family-hood small scale husbandry into standardized bigger scale farms. Many farms have more than 100 heads, and the sector is developing fast, more and more farms have 1,000-10,000 heads. In 2017 in Shaanxi province, 1019 farms had more than 100 heads of milk goats, 98 farms more than 500 heads, and 32 farms had more than 1,000 heads.

The current development progress of the goat dairy sector in China have been viewed at the same way as the Chinese cow dairy supply chain some 10 years ago. By seeking the ways of developing goat dairy value chain in Chinese market, Chinese entrepreneurs are using the cow dairy sector as an example, and learning from those expereinces. At the same time they are looking for advanced experiences and technologies from overseas. The demands by the sector in China provide opportunities for Dutch companies who are involved in this business. 

2.  Advanced mating technology is important to achieve higher efficiency and pregnancy results.

3.  Frozen semen of milk goat should be also very interesting for Chinese sector, for the same aim on improving the milk production.

4.  Modern farm system definitely has a great chance, for machinery, tools, technologies, and even design on high efficiency and hygiene farms. Depends on the development of more big animal farms, the automation systems becoming attractive for stakeholders, to lower the risks of diseases and higher production in good quality. For example, feeding and milking machines, veterinary medicine, cleaning machine and tools, ventilation, manure treatment and management skills.

5.  Chinese entrepreneurs put their attention onto developing of new goat dairy products suitable for the Chinese market, for example cheese products. Moreover, processing technology and packaging system are an also interesting parts of the chain, in order to make the dairy products successful in the retailing market. Sharing knowledge on goat dairy processing technology in order to increase the profitability would be highly preferred in Sino-Dutch cooperation.

6.  The export of goat dairy products might be also interesting, both for retailing products and processing materials supply. According to the image of safe food produced in European countries, Chinese consumers trust imported products for better quality, health and safety. On the other hand, some Chinese companies also use imported milk powder as bases for processing, because of price differences and unique products not supplying in China.

7.  Cold storage and logistics technologies are also interesting for goat dairy supply chain.

Landbouwteam China

2019

_{Information Resources:
Presentation delivered by Mr. NING Dianlin, deputy Director General of Shaanxi Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs;
Presentation delivered by Prof. CAO Binyun, Chairman of International Milk Goat Association, Professor of Northwest Agriculture & Forestry University;
Presentation delivered by Prof. Christopher Lu, Professor of University of Wisconsin System, Professor of Hawaii;
Presentation delivered by Mr. David Reed, General Manager Air-cargo of Austrex (Australian Rural Product Export);
Information showed on Shaanxi Goat Dairy Pavilion.}