World Bank - Dairy products and cows create New Hope

Private entrepreneur Liu Yonghao of the New Hope Group gave an excellent example on how his company, with help of the IFC, the private investment arm of the World Bank, lifted 100,000 Chinese families out of poverty and gave them tools to make a profit. Liu spoke at the ongoing World Bank conference on poverty reducation in Shanghai.
Halfway the 1996 the New Hope group started to invest, encouraged by the IFC, in the dairy industry in poorer parts of China. In the county of Hongjia, Zhejiang province for example people did already raise cows, but their quality was low and living standards were low. The New Hope group started to import better grass and high quality cows to raise the quality of the dairy products. Technical training and modern technology for raising cows were introduced, said Liu.
Additional collecting and processing milk products was centrally organised, while the cows were owned by individual families. By transporting the milk faster to the cities, quality and revenue were going up. Initially the number of cows increased with one third, 8,000 families were lifted out of poverty and families with two cows could even afford a house.
Liu: "The landscape is now changing as people are planting grass and trees and are building houses."
SInce the initial succes the projects has expanding into other areas and involves now 100,000 families that are involved in producing dairy products.