Research On Dairy Market Management In Modern Shanghai

Historically, China was not a nation of milk drinkers or dairy consumers. The modern dairy industry began in the major port cities to serve Western residents there in the Republic period and Shanghai became the biggest city in terms of dairy consumption in China. Dairy industry is becoming more and more important in Chineses’life. The existing research focus on animal husbandry economy, they are lack of analysis of dairy regulation. Or most studies pay attention to late1980’s, they ignore that cow’s milk has begun to be product by industrial plants in the foreign settlements of big cities like Shanghai from the end of19th century. This research is different from the traditional animal husbandry, it emphasizes the government effort to regulate the dairy market, and the efforts to develop the standards of hygiene in modern China, in order to offer some lessons that we can draw from when we build our contemporary sanitary management system.At the end of the Qing Dynasty, milk produced and drank by foreign people as a food habbit. The foreigners imported dairy cattles to Shanghai, and then, Chinese farmers learnd to localize the cattles. Milk became a commodity in Shanghai’s market.This business was soon threated by rinderpest. Shanghai Municipal Council begun to management, formulated milk standards, strengthen the supervision of the product. They are not only to protect the public health, but also to expand health executive power to the outside of the concession.Municipal Council found milk adulteration and unlicensed dairy was more and more serious, it set up the Pure Milk Supply Commission to discuss how to supply the pure milk in the concession, and decide to imitate European and American cities’ standards to establish a new system about grading of milk, especially the importance of pasteurization.From the1920s to the1930s, imported goods such as dairy products in Shanghai became the public consumption. The Modern hygienic concept and various discourse to involved in the consumption of dairy products encourage the necessity of dairy consumption, as well as the commercial promotional means to foster the habit of milk. Market competition is increasingly fierce. Nestle’s products were successfully enter the Chinese market and become the first choice for many Chinese consumers. Chinese entrepreneurs are much more to follow the practice of the foreigners.The development of the dairy market suffered the war, but the Municipal authorities insisted on milk sterilization, Affected by the command economy, the businessmen have to cooperated with Japanese authorities to strive for supplies, which made them ventured to be "collaborators", or the economic traitor.After the war, the large scale of imports like dairy products direct threat to fresh milk market, but the government failed to rescue.As major Chinese dairymen emerged in the1920s, they set up a powerful organization, the Shanghai Dairy Association(SDA).After the war, another organization, the Shanghai Dairy Trade Guild also formed and argument with SDA nevitably. The true nature in this argument is about milk sterilization. And the municipality insist on pasteurizated milk and grading of milk.To review the the development of Shanghai’s dairy market and the institutional evolution, the municipality stressed the the value of disinfection and sterilizing procedures, and used administrative power to regulate market behavior. Milk was eventually incorporated into the national management, became the parts of morden state system.