Helping hand for dairy
Lan Xinzhen

Zu Wei, Director General of the Livestock Farming and Veterinary Bureau of Heilongjiang Province, is happier recently after finding out the State Council will give further support to the dairy industry. A document enacted on September 29 offers specific policy-related solutions to promote the sustainable and healthy development of the dairy sector, including increasing subsidies to cow breeders and for milking machines, and providing a special policy-related agricultural insurance. “The Central Government has made explicit its duties and policies to support the dairy sector, which is undoubtedly good news,” said Zu. “It comforts the cow breeders and boosts their confidence.” Heilongjiang Province is one of the major cattle breeding regions in China, host to nationally famous dairy brands like Wonder Sun Dairy. As a livestock farming official, Zu has put great faith in policy-related supports. He hopes the enactment of the policy will boost falling purchase prices for milk as well as the dairy sector in Heilongjiang Province as a whole.
Zu said the dairy sector is working on an integrated approach for the dairy chain, encouraging direct cooperation between milk processing factories and farmers with societies of cow breeders, or by using dairy associations as the matchmaker between the separate parts of the industry. Other cow breeders throughout China’s breeding provinces and regions are elated with the supportive policies. In the past year, the raw milk market had shrunk and the new policy supports give hope to individual cow breeders. Currently, the State Council is working on detailed implementation measures for the supports. They are expected to go into effect by the end of this year.
Udder despair
Chen Daping, a villager in Niangetu Village in Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has bred cows for over a dozen years. His village was among the first group of raw milk bases established in Inner Mongolia. Buyers from China’s major dairy producers including Mengniu and Yili often go to Chen for raw milk. Chen’s several dozen cows used to be his major source of income. But they have become a burden since last year when the grain price hike created an increase in feed prices. The price for concentrated feed jumped from 1.5 yuan per kg last year to 2.1 yuan per kg in June this year and the hay price skyrocketed from 300 yuan per hectare to 1,500 yuan per hectare.
It generally takes 25 months for a cow to mature to the point of providing milk for about seven consecutive years and a milk cow can eat up around 50 kg of fodder every day. As a result, the feed expense for a cow capable of providing 5 tons of milk is 2,000 yuan more than it was in 2004. These added expenses come at a time when the purchase price for raw milk only increased from 1.73 yuan per kg in 2004 to 1.84 yuan per kg in 2006. This means the sale price for 5 tons of milk only increased by 300 yuan. The two factors combined have already cut the income off one milk cow by 1,700 yuan. In addition, increases in other expenses such as covering epidemic control, transportation, water and electricity, have helped reduce profits to their nadir.
“We gained 2,000-3,000 yuan from each cow several years ago, but now we only hope that it costs us less,” said Chen. Because of these tough times, Chen had to sell cows yielding less than 15 kg of milk a day to the slaughterhouse for about 4,000 yuan. Just a few years ago he’d spent over 10,000 yuan to purchase them. Many breeders have resorted to that alternative, including those in Shanyin County in Shanxi Province. As a result of the large-scale slaughter in May, the number of cows in Shanyin County dropped by more than 7,000 in early June. In July, an investigation team made up of members from the Development Research Center of the State Council, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Commerce discovered on field trips that 40 percent of the cow breeders nationwide are suffering losses at varying degrees, 30 percent are managing to subsist, and only 30 percent are making a profit. Raw milk shortage Milk cows have been slaughtered and sold as beef cattle, resulting in a sharp reduction in the number of cows and a shortage of raw milk.
According to Chen, the village once had around 4,000 cows at its peak. Those numbers have shrunk quickly since 2005 and are estimated to be at less than 2,800 at present. Because of this, milk production has suffered. One milking shed in the village that used to collect 7 tons of milk from villagers now yields 3 tons at most. The milk shortage severely threatens the construction of raw milk bases and the sustainability of the dairy industry. The purchase price for raw milk has increased since August due to the shortage and some milking sheds have had to send workers directly to cow breeders for milk. Statistics from the Dairy Association of China (DAC) shows the purchase price for raw milk exceed 2.2 yuan per kg in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, 2.3 yuan per kg in northeast China and 2.9 yuan per kg in Shanghai. Milk
produced in Inner Mongolia can cost as much as 3 yuan per kg. The prices are expected to continue rising as winter approaches in the major raw milk bases in the north. Just before this August spike, the purchase price nationwide had held steady around 1.7-2 yuan per kg for the past couple of years. China saw pork price hikes earlier this year due to an increase in the price of feed, and a shortage of pigs. After pork prices dropped from their peak level, prices of milk have soared in a similar way. Since this August, the retail prices for milk powder produced by foreign brands Wyeth and Dumex have increased by 5-20 percent, and domestic brands soon followed. Since then, the DAC has allied with more than 100 dairy manufacturers to negotiate for solutions and measures.
Supply scramble
Many large dairy manufacturers have to purchase raw milk outside their bases due to the shortages in the local raw milk supply. At the end of August, Wonder Sun Dairy and Heilongjiang Dairy Group, all based in Heilongjiang Province, submitted a complaint to the Central Government that Mengniu and Yili from Inner Mongolia had been poaching raw milk on their turf. Yet, since China is increasingly marked by a market economy, the government will do nothing about such complaints. Cow breeders retain the right to sell milk to whoever offers the most competitive prices. “The competition is conducive to increasing the income of cow breeders and we should offer them choices,” said Qi Xiaorong, head of Mengniu’s raw milk department.
Large dairy manufacturers have vied to establish processing factories in major cow breeding regions including Gansu, Shaanxi, Hebei and Heilongjiang provinces, competing with local manufacturers over raw milk. For instance, Yili, Mengniu and Bright have all constructed factories in Shaanxi Province. Manufacturers who control the raw milk bases will enjoy advantages of lower costs in future competition. Manufacturers busy beating down the purchase price of fresh milk a year ago have had to secure a portion of the raw milk market at much higher prices today. Eerguna in Inner Mongolia hosts one of Nestle’s major milk bases in China. As Nestle offered purchase prices much lower than that in surrounding regions, local dairy manufacturers such as Beixue and Caoyuanchun have had to come to Eerguna for raw milk. At present, the city sells as much as 100 tons of milk to manufacturers outside the city every day. Under this pressure, Nestle has increased its purchase price for the fourth time since April 2007.
According to Wei Kejia, Secretary General of the DAC, the domestic dairy sector has been overdeveloped in the past several years and all large and medium-sized manufacturers are faced with a shortage of raw milk. Besides this, cow breeders and milk sheds are loosely connected to the dairy manufacturers by contracts. Individual breeders feed up to several dozen cows; the milk sheds collect raw milk from them in one village and in turn sell it to manufacturers. The lack of efficiency on the part of cow breeders is probably one important reason for their losses. The soaring costs have brought uncertainty to China’s dairy sector and dairy manufacturers are adjusting their strategies, from focusing on liquid milk products to milk powder with higher value-added in hopes of easing cost pressure. Wei believes large manufacturers capable of beating prices down enjoy cost advantages over small ones that have to buy milk powder and fresh milk at any cost for production.
Words from the wise
Wei believes the protection of cows should be the government’s top priority to ensure a healthy development of the sector. A cow breeder will spend an average of 50,000-odd yuan buying five cows, a large investment for any ordinary household in China. Furthermore, the investment won’t see returns until at least 25 months after the birth of a calf. Subject to a fickle market, epidemics and other risks, individual cow breeders have little chance to see a return if they suffer losses, said Wei. He advocates that the government must provide cow breeders with more favorable measures such as feed subsidies, cow insurance and loans to buy cows. Besides these measures, the government should focus on fine breeding, establish a complete network to monitor, forecast and control related epidemics and ensure a competent veterinary team available at grassroots veterinary hospitals, Wei advised.
The government could also allocate financial subsidies for milking equipment and environment friendly machines in order to enhance the production efficiency and quality of dairy products. It could also consider encouraging the society of cow breeders to make technical guidance, feed supply and sales channels accessible to individual breeders and to play a more active role as a coordinator to better safeguard the interests of cow breeders.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review  Articles Exchange Item)

Left with an alternative
M J Akbar

THE Indian left is much larger than its most visible face, the Communist Party of India (Marxist). It is split three ways, each currently pointing in three directions. The CPM, CPI and their smaller partners represent the institutional-democratic element. The Naxalites, or Maoists, are the unstructured, undemocratic but increasingly potent dimension.
The recognized parties are restricted to one large, one medium and one small state. There is reasonable dispute over the true strength of the Naxalites. Some argue that many state governments are too eager to declare some of their districts Naxalite-infested because this translates into nonbudgetary assistance from the center to curb the “Naxalite menace” in the name of that variable virtue called “law and order”. But even if the Naxalites are not as powerful in the claimed 170 districts, there is no doubt about their influence in over 80 districts — sufficient to direct the course of the vote if they choose to do so. The Naxalites do not have a coordinated view on important issues, but it may be relevant to note that they were the first political force in the broad opposition spectrum to take an unambiguous view of the Indo-US nuclear deal. They rejected it comprehensively. We do not know if this will be reflected in the elections within those 80-odd constituencies, but it might if, as seems likely, the nuclear deal becomes a central focus of the next general elections.
A third aspect of the left base goes largely unrecognized because it is not obvious. This is the vote that would have gone to the left, if the left had existed on the electoral map of that region. This is the “poor” or “ garibi” vote that once automatically went to the Nehru-Indira Gandhi Congress, but which no longer recognizes the party. Congress sensitivity is so heavily magnetized by the Sensex that it has no space for any parallel reality. This vote has switched twice, in the north, to regional parties. The first time it did so was in 1967; the second time was after 1989. The patterns in the south followed a different course, but there too the vote has shifted or swung between the Congress and regional parties.
The latest beneficiary of this phenomenon has been Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. There are two reasons why the BSP could break out from the limits of provincial success. Its core base, the Dalit, is spread across the country. The Dalits and Muslims constitute the only powerful nationwide vote blocs. Other vote blocs may be national in their sentiment, but they are not nationwide in their presence. There is also great overlap between the Dalit, Muslim and “poverty” identities. If Mayawati can harmonize and then mobilize these identities, she can extend her UP numbers into a much larger calculus. Mayawati is essentially occupying the space left vacant by an absent left. This is why she cannot make much headway in the states where the left is entrenched. Alternatively, she succeeds handsomely where the Congress has ebbed. What are the chances of a left crumble, if not collapse, in the next general elections? Kerala is a seesaw, so the Marxists cannot hope to repeat their success of 2004. They will succeed, however, in tiny Tripura, because they have delivered on the two basics of good governance: Distributive economic growth and social harmony.
Uncharacteristically, the CPM has fumbled on both counts in the critical state of Bengal. While Nandigram may continue to dominate the headlines, Bengal’s Marxists should be equally worried by the riots against ration shops in their heartland constituencies, like Birbhum. Food riots destroyed the Congress before 1967, and they will eat into Marxist margins in 2008.
One of the curious myths, sponsored by the current mania within the upwardly mobile middle class, is that the underprivileged are either unreasonable in their demand for exclusive attention, or, worse, simply unworthy of too much attention since they are a drag factor on economic growth. It is obvious that such self-comforting panaceas have infected Bengal’s Marxists. The truth is that the poor are far more realistic than they are given credit for. They do not believe that there is some magic wand. They have more patience than the better off; not because they are more saintly, but because they have fewer options. What the poor do possess, however, and have every right to retain, is a powerful sense of justice. They can read a signal, or detect a nuance quickly, for they do not have the luxury of complacence. The Bengal government has increasingly indicated that it prefers middle-class coziness to street sensitivity. The manner in which, for instance, it has repeatedly snubbed Muslim sentiment is spectacular in its amateurishness.
How big a price will the party pay? The Marxists may still be rescued by the stand that the national leadership has taken against the proposed strategic alliance with the United States that constitutes the core of the so-called nuclear deal. In real terms, this strategic alliance means involvement in American conflicts in the Middle East. The Muslims have a rather unique distinction: They are possibly the one Indian community with a foreign policy. They have no sympathy for George Bush, and there could be electoral rewards for the Marxists in Bengal and Kerala, if they retain the clarity to find it. This will compensate for some of the malfunctioning in governance.

—Arab News


Dealing with the devil
Eric Margolis

CRIMES of the past keep intruding into present-day politics. Germany has just opened a new memorial to Jewish victims of Nazi persecution. Armenians demand Turkey admit Ottoman-era massacres were genocide. Japan is being blasted anew by its Asian neighbours for denying wartime atrocities. Yet the greatest crime in modern history, and the bloodiest genocide, have almost vanished from our collective memory. This week marks the 70th anniversary of the Great Terror in the Soviet Union in which tens of millions were murdered or imprisoned.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, at least commemorated for the first time what he termed ‘colossal’ Soviet crimes by attending a memorial service at a killing ground near Moscow where the Soviet secret police shot 20,000 ‘enemies of the people.’ It was interesting watching Putin, a former head of the FSB security service, denouncing crimes of its direct predecessors, KGB and NKVD. This was also the same Putin who recently called the Soviet Union’s collapse a ‘tragedy.’ Still, we applaud his long-overdue recognition of Communist-era crimes.
The Soviet terror began in the 1920’s when Lenin ordered the extermination of Cossacks and opponents of the Bolsheviks. Next came Catholics of White Russia, and resisters to communism in the Baltic states and Moldova. Stalin then ordered liquidation of two million small farmers, known as ‘Kulaks.’
In 1932-33, Stalin unleashed genocide against Ukraine’s independent-minded farmers. Six to seven million Ukrainians were shot or died of starvation in a famine created by NKVD. The man who directed this genocide, Lazar Kaganovitch, the Soviet version of Nazi exterminator-in-chief Adolf Eichmann — was made Hero of the Soviet Union and died peacefully in Moscow in 1991. Neither he nor any of the other surviving officials who committed mass murder and torture ever prosecuted for their crimes. When Communist Party bureaucrats were slow to obey Stalin’s orders to transform the Soviet Union from a backwards rural society into a modern industrial powerhouse, ‘Koba,’ as he was called, had NKVD shoot 700,000 party members. Thereafter, his orders were promptly obeyed. Almost all the party and military hierarchy were executed during the Great Purges of 1937-38, which culminated in the notorious Moscow Show Trials.
From 1934-1941 alone, some seven million victims were sent to the system of concentration camps known as the ‘gulag,’ including nearly one million Poles, hundreds of thousands Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians, and half the entire Chechen and Ingush people. Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Bashkirs, Kalmyks followed. Stalin’s gulag did not need gas chambers: cold, disease and overwork killed 30 per cent of inmates each year. To this day, Russian and foreign historians are unsure of the number of Lenin and Stalin’s victims. Estimates range from 20-40 million deaths from 1922 to 1953 — not including war dead. Stalin committed his worst crimes well before Hitler’s major atrocities got under way. Germany did not alone begin World War II, as most believe. Germany and the USSR jointly did by invading Poland in 1939; Stalin then invaded Finland. Two years later, Britain and the USSR invaded neutral Iran. History indeed remains the propaganda of the victors. — Khaleej Times