Second Posting of First Trip over

Oct 13 – We caught a flight very early out to Harbin to visit more dairies. The first dairy had a total of about 900 head (they count everything, including the chickens I think). Milk yield and paying their bills is their biggest challenge. Milk price is roughly $19 per CWT, but production is very low, often in the 30 to 40 pound range. Labor costs are high as they have so many bodies to work. There are workers everywhere. Feed costs are also very high. I saw some hay that was being sold as alfalfa for over $300 USD per ton. It was so poor I wouldn’t even want to feed it to heifers. The next dairy was a collective dairy with 17 different farms and about 2000 head of cattle. The smallest dairy is about 50 cows and the largest is 200 head. These farms feed only dried corn stalks, some corn silage and concentrate. Production was about 40 pounds on one of the herds we visited, but the owner said he is only able to almost breakeven at that point. Forage quality is a big issue over here. Boy, to have our old Ferndale TMR plant over here.

For lunch today we had a very traditional Korean lunch. The main meat dish was dog. It tastes like a cross between mutton and dark chicken meat. It is very dark meat and somewhat stringy. It was not bad if you didn’t think about it as we normally do, as a pet.

The dairy industry here is struggling just like the US industry, and the melamine issue didn’t help. It has caused consumer confidence issues. The good that will come out of this is the regulatory control that will be implemented that will help prevent this from happening again in the future.

We then drove about 300 km (180 miles) to Kendong, to meet with the next dairy, a new large dairy being built. It is just starting out and they have just heifers right now. We had dinner with them and the secretary (head) of the milk association for this province. We will go to the farm in the morning.

The hotel we stayed out was a very traditional local hotel. It did have electricity and running water, but no hot water in my room. The toilets in the restaurant were the traditional porcelain slit in the floor. I did at least have a Western toilet in my room.

Oct 14 – This morning we went out to the dairy site. They are in the process of building a modern Western style dairy, including flush system. Currently they have only 46 head milking, all heifers. They will grow as the heifers come fresh, planning to have 5000 milking cows. While they are building a nice facility, in watching the workers, it is apparent they have absolutely no experience in how to do chores on a modern dairy. There will have to be considerable training to help they become proficient and efficient. After we toured the dairy, we went to their milk plant where we were served lunch. We were not able to tour the plant so I have no information what it was like.

On the way back to the airport, we stopped at a gas station to use the facilities. The facilities consisted of a brick building with concrete floors and stalls. There were no doors on the stalls and the “toilet” was an opening in the floor that dropped in a trough that was accessible from the back of the building for cleaning. Yes, we are very spoiled in the US. We flew back to Beijing tonight.

I also had my first Imodium required episode of this trip. I was certain it was going to happen sometime, considering the areas of the country I was in. When you see the locals sanitizing their glasses with boiling water in the restaurant, you know there may be challenges ahead. They even sanitized their toothpicks before using them. Hopefully it will pass quickly.

Oct 15 – This morning we drove from Beijing to Sanhe in Hebei province to visit a large dairy, currently milking over 900 head. They have imported cattle from New Zealand and Australia, and have been using semen from Canada and the US to breed the cattle. Production is good for this area at about 65 pounds of milk per head per day. There is a tremendous American influence on this dairy since most of the management is Chinese Americans that actually reside in the US, but travel back and forth. The venture capitalists are also American. They have huge plans to grow to over 100,000 cattle in 5 years on several different facilities. The CEO offered to hire me as a consultant. They are looking for good help to meet their growth goals. They insisted that we stay for lunch. They brought food from their cafeteria facility to the conference room where we ate. I was setting next to one the Chinese Americans managers and he asked me if I was sure that this was my first time in China. I assured him it was and asked why. He wanted to know why I could eat so well with chopsticks. This made me feel good, as it is difficult to eat with them with the dexterity that the Chinese have. I felt like I had made the grade so to speak.

This afternoon we went to another dairy in Wuqing District, Tianjing. They are in an old facility now, but are building a new facility right next to it. They will move into the new facility and rent out the old one. They are building it totally them selves, including headlocks and free stalls. It is interesting to watch that. They can copy just about any thing they see. They were very confused about the free stall dimensions and a few other things so they were waiting for us to get there to proceed on some issues. I was able to give them the dimensions they needed and show them why they needed to be that size. They will have roll-up curtains on the side. They will also have a very modern waste handling system and will have cameras that the governmental agency will be able to logon to over the Internet to check the facility.

We spent the night in Langfang. We stayed at a beautiful 5 star hotel. For dinner tonight I had turtle soup. They bring the turtle out for you to approve of before they chop it in half and throw it into the cooking pot. They add a bunch of spices and some vegetables, cook it and bring it out. The meat, what little of it there is, is very dark. The taste isn’t bad, but I don’t think it is something I would order on my own.

Oct 16 – This morning we met with the technical director of a large dairy farm in Beijing. This company has their own feed mill and complete line of technical services. We are trying to figure out how we can show them we bring value to them and bring them on board as a client. They are currently involved with 27 dairy farms, comprised of about 18,000 milking cows. We visited one of their older farms. The cows looked good and are doing quite well. The farm manager said they are being pushed to move as the neighbors often complain about the smell and flies. They are right next door to a residential/business area. When asked what his major challenges are, he replied manure management and forage quality. We found this, and just trying to pay the bills, were the common issues among all of the farms we visited.

This afternoon, we returned to the Cargill Beijing office for a debriefing meeting. We discussed this visit and then my assignment for future visits to China. My assignment is to personally be responsible for procuring business from the top 10 prospects they identify that we are not now doing business with. I will then need to train the local team on how to service these accounts and develop and train a team that will be able to procure this type of business in the future. In addition, I will be responsible for developing a new business model for going after the large accounts in China. In my spare time, I will develop training tools and aids and help train the dairy team in China to become more knowledgeable and proficient in their work.

Oct 17 – flew back home. The trip was very interesting and I look forward to going back, but it was also good to be home. In our 40 years of marriage, this is the longest Merilee and I have been apart.


Unusual foods I have eaten on this trip –
Pickled pigeon, eel, pork ankle soup, duck soup, pickled chicken feet, liquid yogurt, strange sausages (I was told not to ask what was in them, but they weren’t bad), Chinese fried bread, various fruits that we do not have in the states, crispy chicken bones (the gristle from the top of the leg bone deep fried), dog, fermented tofu (stay away from this – it is stinky and nasty), roasted barley drink, turtle soup and many unknown bacteria.