Shandong's Yangxin county has striven to transform beef cattle into a pillar 
industry in an effort to drive development, increase local farmers' incomes and 
maintain an ecological environment.

The county authority has steadfastly pushed forward the integration of the beef 
cattle industry and rural vitalization. It has issued several policies to 
enhance support of beef cattle breeding and slaughtering, as well as brand 
promotion. Now Yangxin's three beef and cattle brands have been approved as 
certification trademarks with geographic indications.

With a focus on "internet + beef cattle" technology, Yangxin has worked to 
propel the digital development of the beef cattle industry, using ear tags and 
smart collars for automated individual cattle identification and precise 
feeding of cattle at different growth stages with an intelligent centralized 
feeding system.

In partnership with universities and institutes such as China Agricultural 
University and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Yangxin has 
launched a beef cattle research center, an agriculture internet of things 
center, an experimental station and an industrial technology research institute.

Meanwhile, the county has put equal emphasis on recycling and utilization of 
livestock excrement, building a series of ecological cycling projects with each 
one able to make 240,000 metric tons of livestock excrement into 50,000 tons of 
organic fertilizer, 200,000 tons of biogas fluid fertilizer and 3 million cubic 
meters of natural gas annually.

Now Yangxin has taken the lead in the country in terms of the scale of its beef 
cattle industry. It has 136 beef cattle farms and 76 slaughtering enterprises, 
with an annual output of 280,000 cattle and slaughtering capability of 1.2 
million cattle.

In addition, Yangxin has developed cultural creative products including a 
cattle-hair brush, cattle bone china, and cattle bone carvings.

To improve the supply of cattle, the county also has spared no efforts to 
import quality cattle. In July 2022, it unveiled a cattle industrial park which 
features functions of customs clearance, intelligent cold-chain logistics, data 
collection, standard production and comprehensive inspection.

Once fully operational the park will greatly improve customs clearance 
efficiency, help companies save costs of 36 million yuan ($5.16 million) 
annually and bring 1,500 jobs. It is expected to become a pioneer and leading 
area for the beef cattle industry.

Yangxin has fostered a complete industry chain covering forage planting, calf 
breeding, beef cattle fattening, slaughtering and processing, cold-chain 
logistics, a restaurant chain, leather manufacturing, cattle bone carving, 
cattle by-products processing, and organic fertilizer production, and by doing 
so has created nearly 120,000 jobs.

SOURCE Yangxin County