Transformation of China's beef industry explored

摘要

An excellent new book written by three Australian academics from the University of Queensland explores the recent rapid transformation of China's fast-growing beef industry. Beef is an important livestock product in China, and the beef industry isimmense by world standards. China's beef industry provides useful and novel insights into the growing process of regionalisation in China for several reasons. Although cattle have long played an important role in the Chinese agricultural economy, specific production, management and marketing systems to raise cattle for beef have emerged only over the past two decades and are still evolving. Unlike other agricultural commodities such as pork or grains, the beef industry has not undergone transition froma larger, long-established and regulated procurement and distribution system, but has developed alongside the economic reforms. The beef industry is one of many agricultural and industrial commodities to emerge in the less regulated production and marketing environment of the post-Mao era. Many of these newer industries are targeted by particular regions as 'pillar' industries. They are regarded as a way of increasing household incomes and government revenues relative to more traditional agricultural activities, which face increased competition now China is a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).