Workers inspect beef cattle farm in Shulan county-level city, Northeast China's Jilin province. [Photo/Jilin City Government]

Shulan, a county-level city of Jilin city, Northeast China's Jilin province, set a goal of selling 190,000 beef cattle this year, with an annual output value of four billion yuan ($618 million). The city sold 177,000 beef cattle with an output value of 3.6 billion yuan ($556.2 million) in 2020, ranking first in Jilin city and sixth in Jilin province.

The household-based breeding mode with the full participation of villagers has been popularized in the city. To date, 642 households have applied for small business loans to breed cows, adding a further 1,284 head of cattle to the total.

Aiming at an increase of 4,000 cows during the second quarter of the year, Shulan strives to build 10 standardized breeding farms for feeder cattle by the end of the year, with a growth of 20,000 feeder cattle and over 10,000 cows.

The city is discussing an intercity cooperation project on beef cattle industrialization with large national animal husbandry companies in Northeast China. The project includes building basic cow breeding farms and feeder cattle farms, as well as ancillary facilities, such as feed mills and slaughter houses.

The city will also guide leading beef cattle businesses to help speed up scientific and technological innovation. By the end of the year, it aims to build up a provincial-level leading enterprise and a cold chain logistics center, bring out a registered and certified pollution-free product, open two e-commerce outlets and two offline stores. Two stations are planned to be built to aid in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

Shulan has already secured 20 million yuan ($3.09 million) as a guarantee fund, and the bank has provided a further 200 million yuan ($30.9 million) of small business loans for farmers to raise cows. Borrowers will also enjoy a full financial discount. As of now, 25.68 million yuan ($3.97 million) of loans have been issued. For cattle scale enterprises, the local government has also prepared 10 million yuan ($1.55 million) for risk management.