Modern Dairy, one of China’s largest milk producers, has
been hit with cases of tuberculosis and brucellosis identified in cattle it
shipped to auction.
The company is trying to head off a plunge in the value of
its shares that trade on a number of global stock markets, describing the
incident as isolated and saying that no milk from sick cows has been marketed
to the public.
The Chinese dairy industry has been plagued by many quality
and food safety issues, such as melamine additions to boost protein content for
nutrition tests.
That has, in turn, generated a keen demand for imported
dairy products and infant formulas.
One of the projects has been construction of a huge
infant-formula plant in Toronto that intends to use skim milk powder, which is
in a persistent state of burdensome and costly surplus on the Canadian market.
