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The Telegraph reports that Chinese state-owned companies are approaching British dairy farmers to secure millions of litres of UK milk.
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Martin Lovegrove, who has a 250-strong herd of Holstein dairy cows, said he was speaking directly to a delegation from China that wants to buy between 30m and 50m litres of milk. He has just had the website for his Henden Manor dairy translated into Chinese, with buyers expected to visit his farm soon.
Will this perturb Arla, who has sold powdered milk products on the Chinese market since 2005, and is increasing its investment in a joint venture with Mengniu?
Last year, Arla and Mengniu Dairy decided to export a full range of dairy products to China.
Just-food reports that Arla expects to have more milk on its hands following the abolition of EU milk quotas in 2015 and Arla’s projections, in its 2011 annual report, are that China will need 45bn kg of milk between 2010 and 2020.
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Shades of things to come as government and NFU support farmers exporting milk to China?
For some months this year British supermarkets rationed sales of baby milk powder to two boxes per customer, because of additional demand from Chinese tourists, students who posted them to relatives and also export businesses buying from wholesalers. This was prompted by the Chinese government’s ban on milk powder imports from New Zealand on August 4 this year after Fonterra announced that there might be a potentially harmful bacterium in three batches of its raw milk powder.
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Comments on the Telegraph article included:
- The Chinese must look to their own resources for their milk and not to another country, unless it is a genuine surplus.
- Meanwhile many British dairy farmers struggle to pay bills and make any sort of profit.
- Our British milk must stay here and farmers must receive proper and fair income for producing it.
- I suspect the boot will be on the other foot, very soon – with UK supermarkets being forced to match the Chinese on prices, or find themselves without stock.
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