European food company Nestle is hoping education will boost the quality of dairy products in China.
Nestle revealed to local media that the company has invested CNY180 million in the building of a world-class dairy management and training center in Shuangcheng, Heilongjiang province, aiming to provide training to Chinese dairy farmers.
The training center reportedly covers an area of 600,000 square meters and it has three different types of training pastures. The zone with 1,520 cows can offer practical guidance to diary farmers who are in the transition from small farm operators to large-scale farm operators; while the one with 1,200 cows and the super pasture with 8,000 cows will train large farm operators to expand their scale and use more modern management tools.
Nestle will invest about CNY180 million in this project and the first phase is expected to be completed at the end of 2012.
Su Bo, president for the food and beverage department of Nestle Greater China, told local media that Nestle's new training center will open to all the enterprises of the Chinese dairy industry. During the initial stage of its operation, the trainings will be offered to dairy farmers for free. As it opens to the entire country, the training center will become a "dairy farmers college", providing related training to people in this industry. Though the company will charge for the trainings in the future, it will not aim at making profit.
Su said their goal is to bring international expertise to China and improve the professional level of Chinese dairy farmers.
