On June 30, an on-the-spot meeting themed on the cattle and sheep industry development was held in Zhijiang, with the aim of promoting its "nanny" farming model for the beef cattle industry. According to the Yichang Municipal Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau, the "nanny" farming model for the beef cattle breeding in Zhijiang has not only resolved the problems constraining the beef cattle industry development, such as the land, capital, technology, sources of cattle, etc., but also effectively boosted the beef cattle industry. Currently Zhijiang rank first in both the number of the beef cattle on hand as well as the number of those for sale.

　　Zhijiang beef cattle industry used to be hindered by the problems such as a small number of breeding cows, the insufficient supply of the calves, the high cost of transportation of the calves from outside the city, the demand for breed improvement of local cows. In order to overcome the problems, Zhijiang government issued the loan discount policy to promote the "nanny" model of "cooperative + farmers" for the beef cattle husbandry.

　　To be specific, the model has the following features: a special fund is set up for the development of the beef cattle industry by Zhijiang government; the farmers in demonstration areas get a subsidy of 500 RMB yuan for the introduction of each breeding cow; the farmers who construct an one-thousand-cattle feedlot can be rewarded with 600,000 yuan; the cattle farm identified as the pollution-free producing area can be rewarded with 10,000 RMB yuan; the beef cattle quality improvement can be done for free; the large machinery purchasing for the feed processing gets subsidies of 30% of the expense; cow farmers in demonstration areas get 5,000 RMB yuan subsidized loans for each cow they raise; demonstration households of "165" model can be rewarded with 5,000 RMB yuan.

　　Last year, through fiscal discount policy, Zhijiang arranged one million RMB yuan for the special fund for the beef cattle industry development, and obtained a loan of nearly 600 million RMB yuan from the financial sector, together with the non-governmental capital of nearly 30 million RMB yuan, to introduce breeding cows. And the government has budgeted 1.5 million RMB yuan this year to support the sustainable development of the industry.

　　So far, there are 172 households for beef cattle breeding in the "165" model, 2 breeding farms that slaughter over 1,000 beef cattle per year, and the large-scale breeding rate reached 61.6%; Xinben cattle livestock farming cooperatives, Xingmao professional cattle livestock farming cooperatives and other six cooperatives actively explore the "nanny" model for beef cattle breeding, which has encouraged more than 100 households to breed cows and beef cattle; through policy support, leading farmers’ drive, the city has imported 8,000 fine-breed cows and formed a production scale with an annual output of 30,000 calves. (Reporter: Gong Changjun; Correspondent: Tan Wenwen)

　　Note: “165” model：In the model, a farmer should construct one standard cowshed (50 square meters), breed six breeding cows, and provide five calves to the feedlot per year.