Agriculture and Dairy Production Systems in China: An Overview and Case Studies

The Chinese dairy industry is growing rapidly. Since 1980, the rate of increase in dairy cattle in China's dairy industry (+210,000 cows per year) is 1.7 times higher than the rate of decline of dairy cattle in the US dairy industry (-124,000 cows per year). If the current trends do not change, there will be as many dairy cows in China as in the US-approximately 7.45 million cows in 2012. This two-part Discussion Paper presents the context in which the Chinese dairy industry is developing (Part I) and a study of the Dairy Farm systems and case studies of five farms in the Province of Yunnan, the city of Beijing and the province of Heilongjiang (Part II).