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One of eight rotary milking parlors at Bengbu Farm, the largest dairy in the world with 39,000 Holstein cows, is a vertically integrated factory-style farm. The cows to start the dairy were imported from Australia, the semen for artificial insemination comes from Canada, and a large portion of the alfalfa fed to the cows is from Utah. But most of the feed and all of the 1,000 workers are Chinese. The locally-grown alfalfa gets additives of soybean meal (left over after oil is extracted from raw, mostly imported soybeans), cottonseed, and corn silage. This massive, industrial-scale operation is centered around eight 80-cow rotary milking parlors that feed a lactose processing and packaging plant that produces tetra-packs and bottles of conventional and UHT milk as well as high-quality yogurt. All of the machinery here is the latest top-of-the-line international equipment, and the company prides itself on maintaining control of all aspects of production, from 100,000 mu of alfalfa to finished product which is packaged within hours of coming out of the cow. Each 200ml liter bottle of their best milk sells for 8 yuan ($1.25), which is very high for the Chinese market.

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©2016 George Steinmetz
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Feeding China
One of eight rotary milking parlors at Bengbu Farm, the largest dairy in the world with 39,000 Holstein cows, is a vertically integrated factory-style farm. The cows to start the dairy were imported from Australia, the semen for artificial insemination comes from Canada, and a large portion of the alfalfa fed to the cows is from Utah. But most of the feed and all of the 1,000 workers are Chinese. The locally-grown alfalfa gets additives of soybean meal (left over after oil is extracted from raw, mostly imported soybeans), cottonseed, and corn silage. This massive, industrial-scale operation is centered around eight 80-cow rotary milking parlors that feed a lactose processing and packaging plant that produces tetra-packs and bottles of conventional and UHT milk as well as high-quality yogurt. All of the machinery here is the latest top-of-the-line international equipment, and the company prides itself on maintaining control of all aspects of production, from 100,000 mu of alfalfa to finished product which is packaged within hours of coming out of the cow. Each 200ml liter bottle of their best milk sells for 8 yuan ($1.25), which is very high for the Chinese market.

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