Dairy industry boosts Hohhot leapfrog development

The World Dairy Industry Conference will be held in Hohhot, capital city of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, on Aug 4-7.

Hohhot is chosen as the host for its unique geographical location and complete dairy industrial chain.

Hohhot is located in the internationally-recognized 40°N golden milk source belt, providing a unique natural resource advantage for the development of the dairy industry in the city.

As early as 2005, it earned the title "China's Dairy Capital" and established a complete industry chain from grass cultivation to milk production and processing.

Hohhot is leading the country in the R&D of high-quality grass seed technology. With the support of the Institute of Grassland Research of CAAS and Inner Mongolia Academy of Agricultural Sciences, as well as China's dairy giant Mengniu, three grass seed bases with a total area of 8,500 mu (566.67 hectares) have been established, making it the most extensive grass germplasm resource library in the country.

Meanwhile, the construction of smart farms has made dairy farming in Hohhot more scientifically and reasonably managed.

Taking the Chilechuan Ecological Smart Ranch as an example, various intelligent unmanned milking, feeding, and material handling robots are assigned to their respective tasks.

With the help of technology, cows can enjoy the freedom of milking, resting, and grazing, following their instincts as much as possible, with no human intervention throughout the process. This increases the cows' productivity significantly.

By the end of 2022, Hohhot had a dairy cattle population 340,000, with milk production exceeding 1.8 million metric tons. The total revenue of the city’s dairy industrial chain surpassed 220 billion yuan ($31.38 billion).

Moreover, the dairy industry cluster in Hohhot was selected as a national advanced manufacturing cluster and approved as the country's only national dairy industry technology innovation center. Local dairy enterprises such as Yili and Mengniu also achieved global recognition, ranking 5th and 7th among global dairy companies.