China's tainted formula shows risks of dairy boom

Tag : Industry raw materials
China's tainted formula shows risks of dairy boom
By ELAINE KURTENBACH – 7 hours ago
SHANGHAI, China (AP) — A generation ago, when today's newChinese parents were infants, milk powder was so scarce that it wasone of the top items requested from travelers visiting fromoverseas.
A wide array of dairy products now lines supermarket shelves, andanalysts say the boom has overwhelmed regulators. The discoverythis week of an industrial chemical in baby formula and milk isjust one symptom, they say, of unbridled growth in the dairyindustry, where poor hygiene reigns and safety standards often gounenforced.
Authorities ordered testing of all dairy products and vowed toupgrade quality standards after four Chinese babies died and morethan 6,200 fell ill from drinking formula containing melamine.Wider checks found the chemical in milk produced by several ofChina's biggest name dairy companies, according to Chineseauthorities.
The melamine scandal "reflects chaos in the dairy products marketand loopholes in supervision and administration," said a governmentWeb site's summary of a Cabinet meeting held late Wednesday thatwas chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao.
"The dairy industry has just been developing too quickly. Dairyproducers know how to make innovative new milk products, butthey've ignored the issue of quality of the raw materials," saidLao Bing, manager of the Shanghai-based consultancy Mingtai DairyIndustry Sales Fund.
As was true in several other recent cases, the problems crept in atthe lowest rung of the production chain, often the weakest link forChinese industries.
"Everything on the raw materials side just depends on the milkproducers themselves. They set their own standards," Lao said.
The infant formula scandal is the second in recent years. In 2004,at least 12 Chinese babies died and more than 200 sufferedmalnutrition after being fed phony formula containing little or nonutrition.
The latest incident has also raised doubts about the effectivenessof improved food and drug safety standards put in place afterearlier scares over bogus or contaminated products.
Investigators say raw milk suppliers, in hopes of clearing moreprofit, watered down their milk to increase volume and then addedthe industrial chemical melamine, which is high in nitrogen andartificially appears to boost protein content.
Melamine is an industrial chemical used in plastics, as a bindingagent, flame retardant and sometimes in fertilizer. Some of theinfants who consumed formula tainted with the chemical developedkidney stones or kidney failure.
Most Chinese milk makers lack the equipment needed to detect suchchemicals, said Chen Lianfang, a senior dairy analyst at BeijingOrient Agribusiness Consultant Co.
Few factories and farms adhere to health safety regulations, andeven if they did, China's national quality standards on hygienewere set in the 1980s and are woefully out of date, Chen said.
"Milk that meets those outdated standards would be consideredsubstandard in any other country and just be thrown out," he said.
Milk production has grown fourfold over the past decade to morethan 33 million tons a year, as farmers rushed into dairyoperations. The country has about 15 million milk cows, accordingto the government-affiliated China Dairy Industry Association, andis the world's third-biggest producer of milk.
Supermarkets offer dozens of milk products promising to maximizehealth through better nutrition. Families, both affluent citydwellers and poor farmers, have meanwhile shifted en masse tobottle feeding, often viewing breast-feeding as inconvenient andold-fashioned.
But about 80 percent of all milk is produced by small farmers wholack modern equipment or knowledge of dairy technology. Forage isscarce, feed is of poor quality and sanitary conditions on farmsquestionable, industry reports say.
"In China, the raw milk suppliers are mainly farmers lackingscientific skills. Some of them raise cattle just like they wouldpigs," said Beijing Orient's Chen. "You can imagine that if theinitial source is tainted, how about the final products?"
Industry experts say the country needs more advanced testingequipment, stricter and more detailed regulations and bettertechnology — including basic hygiene.
So far, officials have attributed all the illnesses linked tomelamine-tainted formula to products from Sanlu Group Co., amanufacturer based in northern China's Hebei province.
But health ministry officials said a national investigation foundmelamine in products from about one in five dairy companies,including China's two biggest milk producers: Mengniu Dairy,China's biggest milk company and rival Yili Industrial Co., andShanghai-based Bright Dairy.
"This is a grave lesson for the entire Chinese dairy industry,"said Lao, of Mingtai Dairy Industry Sales Fund.
Associated Press researcher Ji Chen contributed to this report.