Jinan Field Trip

After the meeting we were taken on a field trip east of Jinan. We traveled about 45 minutes, leaving the high rise buildings and passing through an industrial area. The road was 4 lanes each way, well built and in excellent condition except for the curious fact that a couple of railroad crossings were so rough that we had to slow to a crawl. Following are photos from the van. The smog cleared late in the day; we were told that it was the first time in two weeks that they had seen the sun.


The second picture above shows a small mountain. These were common. It does not show particularly in this picture, but many of these mountains were being chiseled away, presumably for building materials.

We did not travel far enough to see much cropland. Stopping at an industrial park, we first visited the Shandong Mingfa Veterinary Medicine Co., Ltd. (no picture). Then we visited the Jiabao Milk Co., Ltd., an integrated dairy facility from farm to packaged product.

Here is the fluid packaging line for bagged milk. The plant also had facilities for making milk powder.

The farm was nearby, still in the industrial park. This is a 3,000 cow farm built in 1998.

Cows were housed and milked in tie stall barns, about 110 cows per barn. Open areas, such as the one shown above, were between the barns.

This is the inside of one of the barns. The ration was mostly forage. Manure was cleaned from the gutter by hand.

We were told that the crop fields were about 5 kilometers away, but we did not see them.

This farm had a methane digester, built in 2005, but the employees who operated it had gone home for the day and the facility was locked. That did not prevent Dan from seeing as much as he could!