Shi Yudong puts forward his suggestions at a meeting of the Inner Mongolia delegation to the National Two Sessions on March 5. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Shi Yudong – a deputy to the National People's Congress, from North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – recently called for the dairy industry to be developed with strong international competitiveness.

His remarks were made at a meeting of the Inner Mongolia delegation to the National Two Sessions on March 5.

Shi Yudong is a first-line scientific researcher at Chinese dairy giant Mengniu Group, based in Inner Mongolia.

He said the region's dairy sector had achieved gratifying progress in its construction of large-scale industrial clusters and high-quality milk source bases, as well as in the supervision of quality and safety.

In order to further boost the industry's development and innovation, his suggestions included innovating a raw milk material reserves adjustment mechanism.

Learning from the practices of other important agricultural products – such as grain, oil, sugar, cotton and meat – it was suggested that dairy products should be listed as reserve materials.

Shi said it is necessary to establish a national-level reserve center, innovate the market adjustment mechanism and protect the interests of dairy farmers.

Moreover, it was of great importance to establishing a national-level dairy product trading center and continuing to influence the international debate about ways forwards for the global dairy product market.

Another suggestion was on improving the country's independent research and development innovation capabilities.

The proposed measures include supporting the construction of a dairy breeding system, enhancing independent R&D for dairy processing equipment, supporting the innovative breeding of alfalfa grasses and reducing the gap between alfalfa grass and food crops.

Additionally, suggestions supported more research into processing technologies for raw materials of infant formula milk powder, among others.