According to the monitoring data of the national dairy cow industry technical system, the production capacity of the radiation field will be significantly improved in 2023, reaching 10.7 tons per unit yield, 3.93% milk fat rate, 3.28% milk protein rate, 28,500 bacteria, and 194,000 somatic cells. China's dairy farming level has entered the ranks of the world's dairy high-yield countries.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the total output of raw milk in China last year was 41.97 million tons, an increase of 6.7% year-on-year, basically the same as that in 2022. "This is also the fourth consecutive year that China's milk production has increased by more than 6 percent." According to the report, as of 2022, there were 11.608 million dairy cows in storage, an increase of 6.1% compared with 2021, which is also the fastest increase in dairy cattle storage since 2018.

In 2022, the annual yield of adult cows in China was 9.2 tons, an increase of 5.7%. Due to the high price of feed inputs such as corn and soybean meal, the cost of milk production in 2023 is at a high level, but the price of raw milk continues to decline throughout the year, resulting in a continuous decline in the yield of dairy farming.

The report predicts that as dairy cattle inventories continue to grow, raw milk production is expected to continue to rise this year, which will put more pressure on the dairy farming industry, which is already facing severe difficulties.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the output of dairy products last year was 30.546 million tons, up 3.1 percent year on year. Combining previous years' data, consumption is expected to increase this year. According to the analysis of the report, in the case of insufficient impetus for the growth of consumer demand, consumption growth is mainly the result of the decline in dairy prices, that is, the price in exchange for volume.

Dairy breeding is the foundation for the development of dairy industry. The report pointed out that in 2023, the basic work of dairy breeding in China was continuously consolidated, and the two standards of "Chinese Holstein cattle (GB/T 3157-2023)" and "PCR method for detection of bovine spider leg Syndrome (NY/T 4422-2023)" were promulgated and implemented; The scale of DHI measurement reached the highest level in history (1.95 million cows), and 58,000 cows were linearly identified. The national standard "Technical Regulations for the Production and Transfer of Bovine Embryos in Vivo (GB/T 26938-2023)" has been officially implemented, promoting the standardized development of simultaneous estrus and embryo rapid propagation technologies, and the application degree has been continuously improved in China's dairy cow head seed formation enterprises and some core breeding farms. The calculation method of milk fat percentage and milk protein percentage in a single shift sampling was established, which not only has high accuracy, but also greatly improves the efficiency of milk index detection. The performance and operational efficiency of the national genetic assessment platform have been continuously improved, and the data preparation and post-evaluation analysis work have been modular, and the average time of genome genetic assessment has been further reduced by 1/4.

However, compared with developed countries in dairy industry, dairy breeding in China still faces certain technical problems, such as: low coverage of dairy breeding phenotype and traits, lack of independent innovation of key technologies and products, low industrialization of efficient propagation of improved varieties, and incomplete health detection and record of breeding animals. In developed dairy countries, high-throughput sequencing and omics technologies have been used to greatly accelerate the research process of the genetic mechanism of important traits in dairy cows.

The continuous improvement of the production level of dairy cows makes precision nutrition farming more and more important, for this reason, a series of technical studies were carried out in China last year, such as adding 200 mg/L stevioside or 5 g/head/day yeast culture can improve the feed intake and daily gain of calves, 0.3% L-selenomionine or 15% organic zinc can improve the antioxidant capacity of lactating cows.

The automatic body condition scoring equipment of dairy cows was created, and the body condition scoring platform oriented to edge computing was developed. The identification accuracy of dairy cows reached 99.75%, and the accuracy rate of dairy cows' body condition scoring reached 96% under 0.5 point error.

With the acceleration of the scale process of dairy farms in China and the rise of labor costs, mechanization has become the material basis and strong grip to achieve efficient production of dairy farms. However, compared with developed countries in the dairy industry, China's mechanized intelligent breeding development foundation is weak, and dairy cow equipment is highly dependent on foreign countries. Therefore, in the short term, we should strengthen the integration and transformation of the single technology of existing facilities and equipment; It is necessary to carry out research and development of major large-scale equipment in the pasture for a long time to reduce external dependence.

The report also shows that in 2023, China's milk and milk product testing technology has improved significantly. For example, China took the lead in developing a lactoferrin detection method in the world, and formulated the agricultural industry standard "Determination of lactoferrin in milk and milk products high performance liquid chromatography", which helped 41 dairy enterprises to mark quantitative lactoferrin content on pasteurized milk product packaging, significantly enhancing the core competitiveness of domestic milk.

In addition, the research and development process of domestic dairy products has accelerated. In 2023, 10,264 strains of lactic acid bacteria were isolated and identified in China, and the world's largest and complete original lactic acid bacteria germplasm bank was established, and the first batch of national agricultural microbial germplasm bank sequences were selected. Breakthroughs and innovations have been made in the key technologies of precise screening of lactic acid bacteria, industrialization and the key technologies of high-activity composite probiotic fermented milk processing, and micro-ecological preparations have also become an alternative solution in the field of green dairy farming. In the processing technology of liquid milk, new technologies such as lactoferrin directed protection and sugar-controlled milk development have been developed continuously. By using the combination of milk and coffee or milk tea and other fast-moving consumer goods, various new products of blended milk are constantly launched to promote the development of liquid milk tea products. In the field of milk powder, the approved use of breast milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) has led to a new round of progress in infant breastfeeding formulas. At the same time, the separation and purification technology of α-lactalbumin has made important progress, and the extraction purity can reach 90.83%.

According to the report, China's dairy industry should also focus on the research and development of high-activity and high-stability processing technologies of strains and diversified functional dairy products. In addition, the proportion of dry dairy products dominated by cheese in China's dairy consumption has increased year by year, becoming an important growth point in the development of China's dairy industry, and it is also one of the key categories to solve the expansion of China's dairy consumption market and alleviate the pressure of raw milk industry during the trough period.

Through the panoramic observation and research of the milk industry, the report believes that last year, the overall quality of China's milk industry reached a new height. "But we also see that in 2023, the oversupply of raw milk drives milk prices down, the breeding cost remains high, and the supply continues to increase, aggravating the imbalance between supply and demand. Under the influence of multiple factors, the dairy farming industry is facing the most difficult situation in more than a decade, and the dairy farming loss is more than 70%." The report pointed out that in the face of challenges, innovation is an important driving force for industrial development, but also an important way to get out of the current predicament.

The report emphasizes that in order to solve the dilemma of industrial development, technology should be innovative, management should be innovative, and policies should be innovative. It is urgent to ensure the stable development of the industry through policy innovation. On the one hand, it is necessary to improve the market stability mechanism, promote the balance of supply and demand and price stability through the temporary purchase and storage system, and ensure that dairy farmers successfully overcome the difficult stage. On the other hand, we should focus on strengthening the support and protection of small and medium-sized farms, family farms and social farms in dairy farming, so as to ensure the health of the ecological environment of China's dairy industry.