倒奶困局 (daonai kunju): Milk-dumping predicament

In the main dairy producing areas such as Hebei and Shandong provinces and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, many dairy farmers have begun to dump milk and even kill their cows due to falling milk prices.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, the price of fresh milk has been continuously declining recently. In the first week of January, the price of fresh milk in the major production provinces was 3.67 yuan ($0.6) per kilogram, a year-on-year drop of 12.4 percent. Some dairy processing enterprises have begun to stop purchasing fresh milk.

The continuously declining price of imported milk powder means dairy enterprises have reduced the use of domestic fresh milk. The current fall in demand has mainly hit middle-and small-sized milk farmers, and some professionals have appealed to the authorities to protect domestic dairy farmers, in order to avoid any large-scale dumping of milk in the producing areas.