The Beef Cattle Research Center of China Agricultural University, the Sino-French Beef Cattle Research Center, and the China-Canada Beef Cattle Industry Cooperation Alliance were established in February 2003, December 2005, and June 2017, respectively. The work has laid the foundation for the research and industrial development of beef cattle in China. The new era has opened a new round of development of China's beef cattle industry. China's beef cattle industry not only faces huge opportunities, but also has great challenges. Local governments, beef cattle fattening enterprises, and slaughtering and processing enterprises in the main beef cattle production areas have the future development of the Chinese beef cattle industry Many differences, I invite senior experts in China's beef cattle industry-Professor Meng Qingxiang to share his unique insights on the development of the industry.
★ China's beef cattle inventory and beef production rank third in the world. What stage is China's beef cattle industry in?
★ What are the modes of beef cattle breeding in China?
★ Where is the bottleneck restricting the development of China's beef cattle industry?
The development of China's beef cattle industry requires rational thinking. The beef cattle industry is still in its infancy
Since the 1980s, China's beef cattle industry has developed rapidly. Although the current beef cattle inventory and beef production are both ranked third in the world, the development of the beef cattle industry still needs to be viewed rationally throughout the industry. The current beef cattle industry in China is still in its infancy .
Compared with the beef industry in developed countries, China's beef industry is still in its infancy
From 1980 to 1990, starting with the abolition of the "prohibition of killing farming cattle" regulations as a starting point, opened the way for the exploration of China's beef cattle industry
Before reform and opening up, China had no real beef industry. As we all know, before the reform and opening up, our farming cattle were all used for service, and old and disabled cattle that had lost their ability to use them could only be used for meat. Therefore, the only source of beef at that time was retired farm cattle, and there was no commercially produced product of beef. In this sense, China had no beef cattle industry before reform and opening up.
China's beef cattle industry should start with the abolition of the "Forbidden Killing of Cattle Cattle" regulations based on the concept of industry. After the reform and opening up, with the improvement of people's living standards, driven by national policies, starting from the abolition of the "forbidden killing of cattle" regulations, traditional service cattle began to be converted to meat, marking a historic turning point in China's beef cattle industry. Since then, the beef cattle industry has begun a phase of exploration and development, which is the decade from 1980 to 1990. People call beef cattle "cai cattle" as part of the government's vegetable basket project. Therefore, I think this stage is the exploration stage of China ’s beef cattle industry, which is characterized by the immature development positioning, concepts, and technology of the beef cattle industry. Although the government has begun to focus on breed improvement, the beef cattle breeding system has not been established, and too much emphasis is placed on straw Cattle, small production scale, low technical level, small and scattered feeding methods dominate.
From 1991 to 2020, the industry is in its infancy
In the past 30 years, China's beef industry has developed rapidly, characterized by beef cattle inventory and beef production have reached the third place in the world. In 2016, the total beef production reached 7.17 million tons, and the per capita beef consumption reached 5.5 kg. The breeding standards, carcass classification standards, and breed standards in the beef cattle industry were established at this stage, and financial capital began to pay attention and enter the beef cattle industry.
At this stage, the stock of local cattle breeds in China also reached 15 million heads, surpassing the total stock of 11.62 million head of beef cattle in Canada. A number of beef cattle breeding and slaughtering companies have started to grow, and beef has entered the dining tables of consumers as the main livestock product.
However, compared with the beef cattle industry in China, compared with the developed countries in the beef cattle industry, China's beef cattle industry is still generally in a backward position. The production efficiency and technological level determine that China's beef cattle industry is still in its infancy. Although the inventory and meat production are already at the forefront of the world, the per capita beef consumption is still only half of the world average. Although we also have excellent local breeds such as Qinchuan cattle, Luxi yellow cattle, Jinnan cattle, Nanyang cattle, etc., in the ranking of world-renowned beef cattle breeds, China's cattle breeds have no place. Since China's beef cattle are derived from farm cattle, no matter in terms of breed, feeding technology, slaughtering and segmentation technology, consumption concept, etc., China has a large gap compared with developed countries in the world beef cattle industry.
2021-2050 The industry entered a period of rapid development
After the reform and opening up, the Chinese government put forward the strategic goal of "three steps" for China's socialist modernization drive. The last step is to basically realize modernization from 2020 to 2050 through 30 years of hard work and build China into a socialist modernized country. Consistent with this big goal, from 2021 to 2050, China's beef cattle industry will also enter a period of rapid development. This stage of our country is a stage of transition from middle-income countries to high-income countries. Meat consumption will also shift from high-fat pork to high-protein low-fat beef and lamb. This stage will gradually form a beef cattle industry chain with Chinese characteristics. , Beef cattle industry standards and beef consumption habits, China's beef cattle production level and efficiency, beef output and quality will be greatly improved.
After this stage of development, the per capita consumption level of beef in China will increase from the current 5.5kg to 15kg, reaching the current consumption level of 9.5kg per capita in Japan and 15.5kg per capita in South Korea, which is above the world average. However, due to the influence of consumption habits, there is still a big gap between China's per capita beef consumption level and the per capita consumption level of developed countries (US 36kg, Uruguay 56kg).
After 2051, the beef industry has entered a period of stable development
After 2050, China's beef cattle industry will enter a period of steady development, and its mark is that per capita beef consumption exceeds 20kg, reaching the level of half the per capita consumption of countries such as the United States and Canada. There are more than 5 listed companies with an output value of tens of billions, and the beef cattle industry technology, cattle breeds, standards, etc. have a place in the world, and are expected to achieve a large number of exports.
Chinese beef cattle breeding model is still being explored
Currently, the development of China's beef cattle industry is still in its infancy, and there are two major problems that restrict the development of China's beef cattle industry. One is the breeding model and the other is the breeding technology. Due to the imperfection and imperfection of these two aspects, China's beef cattle breeding has resulted in low efficiency, backward feeding techniques, and poor product quality.
No land supporting area is not suitable for raising cattle
China has not established its own farming model. Small-scale household breeding and moderate-scale farming are not contradictory
At present, China has not really established its own beef cattle breeding model. Although beef cattle have huge market demand and breeding prospects, we must also clearly understand that beef cattle breeding requires conditions. No matter where the cattle are raised, no matter what good breeds are raised, and no matter what the purpose of raising the cattle, the beef will ultimately participate in market competition. First, not all places can raise cattle; secondly, from a cost perspective, even places where natural conditions can raise cattle may not necessarily be able to raise cattle; third, nor is a good cattle breed suitable for all regions; fourth The technical content and technical requirements of beef cattle breeding are no less than dairy cattle breeding. In some places, the beef cattle industry is linked to poverty alleviation. It is generally believed that beef cattle breeding is a good project for poverty alleviation, but in fact it is not the case.
Areas where land transfer costs exceed 400 yuan / mu are generally not suitable for raising beef cattle. At present, the cost of land transfer in a considerable part of China is as high as 800-1000 yuan / mu. From a cost accounting perspective, these areas are simply not suitable for breeding beef cattle. After investigation and analysis by the China-Canada Beef Cattle Industry Cooperative Union, we do not recommend raising cattle in areas where the circulation cost of beef cattle breeding land in China exceeds 400 yuan / mu. The reason is very simple. The current breeding efficiency level that our country's cattle breeding technology can achieve cannot amortize the cost of land circulation of more than 400 yuan / mu. The rent of the land in the United States is less than 100 yuan per mu, which is their low cost for beef cattle breeding. One of the main reasons.
It should be pointed out that the current land transfer costs in most areas of China are relatively high. In fact, the profit per farmer of farming is only 200-300 yuan per mu, but if the land transfer is used to obtain nearly 1,000 yuan in rental income, the global integration From a chemical perspective, this approach is inherently unreasonable. In fact, this approach cannot be sustained.
Although there is market demand in economically developed areas, if there is not enough land support, these places are not suitable for raising cattle. Today, with the rapid development of the beef cattle industry, many local governments develop the beef cattle industry as a pillar industry. In recent years, China has imported many kinds of cows from abroad, and has also built a batch of large-scale beef cattle farms. However, due to the lack of sufficient land as a support, everyone overlooked the fact that cows need to exercise during pregnancy and calving. In terms of space, the areas where cows are raised abroad are all areas with vast grassland, abundant water plants and low breeding costs. It is difficult to raise cows at low cost in areas without land support.
Beef breeding needs to consider supporting factors such as land, feed and labor. China's beef cattle production technology level is low, not all places are suitable for cattle breeding, beef cattle breeding needs to consider local land, pasture, feed and labor and other factors supporting conditions. At present, there are situations of surplus labor and waste of idle resources in many areas of China. If these resources are reasonably utilized and transformed by feeding beef cattle, certain benefits can also be achieved; at the same time, grassland areas in China are also suitable for cattle breeding, but grassland areas are prohibited from grazing for environmental protection reasons. In fact, reasonable grazing and ecological protection can achieve a good combination, of course, excessive grazing will destroy the environment.
Not all aspects of beef cattle breeding need to be scaled up. Affected by the breeding physiology and habits of cows, cow farming is not suitable for scale. The economic scale of cow farming in the United States is 40 heads per household, and in France it is also about 50 heads. Oversized cow farms are difficult to manage in calving and other aspects, and have a high mortality rate. It is difficult to obtain the best benefits in China if the cow breeding scale exceeds 40 heads. Beef cattle fattening requires scale, but conditions in many regions of China are restricted by conditions and may not necessarily be scaled. In the future, the development of China's beef cattle industry should promote moderate-scale breeding.
Northern large-scale intensive cow breeding model must not be feasible
At present, northern China tends to develop large-scale and centralized cow breeding, which is developed with reference to the dairy farming model. But the physiological habits of beef cattle and dairy cows are very different, and raising beef cattle with this model will not work. According to our survey, the breeding survival rate of intensively raised cows is only 50% to 60%. At present, due to government subsidies and the initial investment bottom, it can still be barely maintained, but the final enterprise development depends on the industry ’s own blood production. The market rules to operate.
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Take Canada as an example. They also do not have large-scale cow farms. Very few have a scale of 1,000 to 1,500 heads, but these are all breeding farms, and the land area is huge. If there is no land support to raise cows entirely on the scale of house feeding, not only domestic, but also foreign countries are unsuccessful, because the breeding of cows themselves requires movement. If calving in winter is even more troublesome, this model violates the breeding and physiological laws of cattle and is undesirable.
There is no fixed model for beef cattle breeding. It is determined comprehensively according to the resource conditions and benefits of the region
There is no fixed model for beef cattle breeding, and the model adopted by beef cattle developed countries in the world is also different, but in any case, a reasonable breeding model is determined comprehensively based on the resource conditions and benefit factors of your region.
Grazing mode: New Zealand, Australia, Northern Europe such as Norway, Denmark and other countries. These countries are rich in grassland resources. Beef cattle are mainly grazed on grasslands for more time, and concentrated fattening for about 3-4 months in the later period has low cost and good benefits.
Large-scale fattening: North America such as the United States, Canada and other countries. Most countries in North America adopt the straight-line fattening method. The grassland grazing time is relatively short in the early stage, and concentrated large-scale fence fattening is the main method.
Farm farm model: European countries. All production materials and conditions for raising cattle in European countries, including labor, are solved within the family. All resources needed to support cattle raising in the family are on average 30-50 heads. The per capita income of this model is higher than that of the office workers in the city, but it is not too high. These farmers living in the countryside are more likely to be satisfied with the life of the rich and the safe.
China's economy is large, and the area is equivalent to 27 countries in Europe. Different regions have different characteristics, and the mode of beef cattle breeding is also different in each region. The beef cattle breeding mode of the developed beef cattle industry in the world is also determined by the local natural conditions.
Northeast, Northwest, Tibet and other regions: The North American centralized fattening model is recommended. The characteristics of these areas are that the land is extensive and the population is sparse, and the large-scale breeding mode of beef cattle centralized fattening will be more suitable.
Southern region: Recommend the European family farm model. The rural areas of southern China have less land per person and inconvenient transportation, and are more suitable for drawing on the European cattle farming model of family farms.
Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other grassland areas: recommended grazing mode. These areas are rich in grassland resources and are more suitable for grazing models for cow breeding. Although the productivity is relatively low, the benefits will be better if the northern breeding and southern breeding and the fenced fattening in the agricultural area are adopted.
Yunguichuan and other regions: recommend the production model of family calving cows. When raising cattle in southwestern regions such as Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, etc., it is advisable to choose a cattle breed suitable for breeding in tropical regions. It is recommended to develop a model of family calving cows.
Northern China is also a key development area for beef cattle in the future. It will promote high-quality, efficient, safe, environmentally friendly and welfare beef cattle breeding in the future.
Currently, the largest province of beef cattle in China is Yunnan. However, due to environmental protection and feed pressure in the southern region, it is unreasonable to develop a large number of beef cattle breeding. The north is still the main production area of China's beef cattle industry.
In the future, while ensuring the supply of beef in China, we must also promote the quality, efficiency, safety, environmental protection and welfare of beef cattle breeding. Especially for animal welfare, Vice Minister Yu Kangzhen gave a special report at the World Animal Welfare Conference held in Hangzhou last year. The report pointed out that China should formulate animal welfare breeding standards. It is expected that in the near future, China will also introduce welfare standards for beef cattle breeding and slaughtering. In the future, beef cattle welfare breeding and welfare slaughtering will be the general direction. The regulations require that cattle sheds must be built in areas where rainfall exceeds a certain level to divert rain and pollution, which not only increases the cost of raising cattle, but also is not conducive to the health of the herd. Under the pressure of this environmental protection policy, the cost of developing a large number of beef cattle in the south will be very high. On the contrary, the arid areas in the north will be conducive to the development of cattle breeding.
There are many breeding models for beef cattle in developed countries, but due to differences in conditions, the development model of China's beef cattle industry does not necessarily need to copy foreign experience. For example, the model of hundreds of thousands of large-scale fattening cattle in the United States may not be suitable for China. In the future, China's beef cattle breeding should still advocate moderate scale.
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There is no fixed model for beef cattle breeding, but large-scale cow breeding must not be feasible
