At a seminar of the dairy industry in June, Wang Dingmian, President of the Guangzhou Dairy Association, attacked China’s current raw milk standard, saying the current standard is more relaxed and inefficient. He even said the current raw milk standard is the lowest in the world. However, Talmud, Secretary General of the Dairy Association of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, said China’s dairy industry was still in a preliminary stage of development and the current raw milk standard was based on national conditions. The controversy over the raw milk standard has made headlines across the country in recent days.
Maintain the current standard
Talmud (People’s Daily): There is no doubt that dairy safety standards must put the public’s health first. We have to admit China’s current raw milk standard is not high at all. It demands protein content per 100 grams of raw milk stand at 2.8 grams or more, but the old standard was 2.95 grams. According to the old standard, the aerobic plate count allowed was 500,000 a milliliter, but now it is 2 million. The two indexes show the country’s raw milk standard has significantly dropped.
However, the new standard is not harmful to people’s health. The health departments have taken into consideration dairy safety before making the current standard. We all hope to see strict dairy safety standards for China’s dairy industry, but the current situation in China is that most Chinese raw milk providers are still unable to meet a higher standard. In fact, 70 percent of dairy farms are running on a small scale, with fewer than 100 cows. Small-scale operation can’t ensure stable quality and sanitation for raw milk. Moreover, the current milk supply falls far behind the demand for the dairy-processing industry, with a gap of 40 to 50 percent. In this situation, milk-processing companies are unable to impose too high standards on raw milk.
A raw milk standard has to conform to the reality of the country’s dairy industry, and at the same time ensure consumers’health and safety. The priority of the industry now is to expand the farming scale to improve milk supply.
The idea to improve milk quality by raising the raw milk standard is great, but it will be a heavy blow to the dairy industry, because it does not take into account the reality of China’s dairy industry. If we raise the standard, at least 70 percent of small-scale farms will have to throw their milk away, or kill their cows, leading to an even more limited supply line.
On one hand, we should be responsible for consumers’ health; on the other hand, we have to respect the reality of China’s dairy industry.
Wu Jiang (www.xinhuanet.com): Due to food safety scandals in China’s dairy products in recent years, and the argument that a lower standard is not harmful to health inevitably arouse anger among the public. But the quality of dairy products mainly depends on raw milk and the processing technology. Therefore, the raw milk standard should be based on China’s national conditions in the dairy industry. Most of China’s dairy farms and manufacturers are now unable to reach higher standards. If the current standard is further raised, 70 percent of China’s dairy farms will have to be shut down, and by then foreign dairy brands will dominate the Chinese market.
In fact, a stricter standard might make dairy producers take risks to violate laws, rather than upgrading the quality immediately. The melamine scandals of some dairy products show enterprises risk adding additives to milk to reach a certain higher standard. They are presently unable to improve milk quality in face of the present production situation. At least for the time being the raw milk standard should be set based on China’s national conditions.
Raise the standard
Wang Dingmian (People’s Daily): Some people said the current raw milk standard is based on China’s national conditions and meant to protect the interests of small and medium-sized dairy farming. I don’t agree with this opinion.
Is it China’s present national conditions can’t ensure high-quality milk? As long as cows are fed with fine feed and grass, within three to five days, protein content in raw milk should increase. If a higher dairy standard can bring huge profits and the milk failing to meet a higher standard is forbidden to be sold, farmers will have to increase investment in their cows and more importantly, profits should be enough for them to raise the raw milk quality.
It is argued that small-scale farming can’t produce high-quality milk, as smallscale farming often features poor sanitary conditions and limited means of preserving milk and thus the aerobic plate count in raw milk tends to be high. Nevertheless, the truth is it’s not farmers who fail to control aerobic plate count, but the dairy producers.
The moment milk is collected, the aerobic plate count a milliliter is about 3,000 to 5,000 and later the number grows to around 2 million. This increase results from processing in dairy companies. Before milk reaches treatment stations, farmers can preserve it by immersing the container in ice and this is not a difficult job.
Many farmers said because of reductions in raw milk prices producers pay them, they can hardly cover the cost of feed and labor, not to mention making a profit. While the domestic demand for dairy products is rising, milk is being poured away and cows are being killed. If milk brings them profits, why should the farmers do this?
Chinese consumers actually don’t like to buy low quality domestic milk. Nowadays, more and more Chinese are trying to buy foreign dairy products. Consumers are not confident in domestic milk, so farmers have no choice but to pour it away or sell it at low prices. Many farmers are losing money by raising cows.
A lower standard is not benefiting farmers who are engaging in small and medium-sized dairy farming, but is instead indirectly sacrificing their interests. Consumers are buying greater quantities of foreign dairy products sometimes at high prices, or at risk of buying counterfeit products, because they are losing confidence in domestic products with low quality. Large-scale dairy producers are the only beneficiaries of a lowered standard for raw milk, as they are able to acquire raw milk and expand market share in a cost-effective way.
Zhang Senlin (www.xinhuanet. com): In the debate over China’s current raw milk standard, some people said it’s more important to ensure everyone has milk to drink than to raise the standard. If a stricter standard is put into place, the majority of China’s dairy farmers will be forced to throw out milk or even sell some of their cows. When dairy farmers go bankrupt, most people will have no milk to drink. However, with a low standard, farmers will manage to provide milk to dairy producers and consumers will then have plenty of milk to drink.
Obviously, this opinion is groundless. First of all, the raw milk standard implemented in China before 2010 was not high enough. According to that standard, the maximum limit for bacteria in raw milk, or the aerobic plate count, was set at 500,000 a milliliter, while protein content stood at 2.95 grams per 100 grams of milk.
Undoubtedly, with the improvement in people’s living conditions, the public expects to drink more nutritious and safer milk, but the new standard revised in 2010 set the aerobic plate count three times higher than before, which is 20 times that of the United States and European Union. As for the protein content, China’s standard is 2.8 grams or more, lower than that of the developed countries. Therefore, the new raw milk safety standard has been scorned as the weakest in the world.
People drink milk hoping that it will make them strong. If there is little nutrition and a lot of bacteria in the milk, then it is no longer good and harmful to peo- ple’s health. Why should people continue to drink such substandard milk?
It’s irresponsible to lower raw milk standard in favor of big dairy producers. It’s necessary to gradually raise the safety standards, and guide producers to improve production technology and managerial expertise through market competition, so the Chinese people can drink safe and nutritious milk.