At the influential Inner Mongolia Dairy Expo this year, the Canadian government’s Trade Commissioner Service team co-hosted a seminar to promote canola meal in dairy rations.

Attendees at a canola meal seminar hosted adjacent to the Inner Mongolia Dairy Expo earlier in 2023. Sophia Yuan (second row, to the right of the central railing), trade commissioner from Embassy of Canada in Beijing, welcomed the invitees and emceed the seminar.

Promoting canola meal in China’s dairy capital

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Inner Mongolia is the dairy capital of China. In March 2023, the Canola Council of Canada attended the Inner Mongolia Dairy Expo and participated in a dairy nutrition seminar held adjacent to the expo. Inner Mongolia Agricultural University and the Canadian government’s Trade Commissioner Service team, based at the embassy in Beijing, co-hosted the seminar. Over 20 dairy nutritionists, technical directors and industry attendees joined the program, which included technical presentations and free discussion.

“Results from our research remained consistent with reports
from international journals or publications – canola-meal-fed
dairy cows increased milk production, and slightly raised milk
fat and milk protein contents with comparison to the control.”
— Sumei Yan

Trevor Yu, agriculture consular from Embassy of Canada in Beijing, gave the opening remarks. Yu noted that 30 years ago, with financial support from the Canadian International Development Agency, Canadian dairy experts visited dairy farms many times in Inner Mongolia and elsewhere in China, providing technical support to local dairy farmers. Yu then said, “Canola remained Canada’s largest agricultural export to China in 2022. In North America, canola meal is widely used as a quality protein source for dairy cows supported by scientific evidence, feeding canola meal as daily rations can increase milk production by one kg per cow per day.”

Professor Sumei Yan, a senior scientist in dairy nutrition from Inner Mongolia University, presented data from their long-term trial of canola meal in dairy rations. The study included rumen bioavailability, digestibility, feeding rate, milk yield and milk quality.

“Results from our research remained consistent with reports from international journals or publications – canola-meal-fed dairy cows increased milk production, and slightly raised milk fat and milk protein contents with comparison to the control,” Yan said. “Replacing soybean meal and cottonseed meal with canola meal may increase milking capacity and higher economic return.

The improvement of performance may relate to rumen bypass amino acids from canola meal.”

Professor Ming Xu from Inner Mongolia Agricultural University shared his experience using canola meal in diets for dairy. He says canola meal, which has high rumen undigestible protein, high dry matter intake and high neutral detergent fibre, could be used to feed cows during all stages of lactation.

Attendees at the seminar represent 1.1 million dairy cows and over one million tonnes of ruminant feed. Professionals from Mengniu, Yili, Modern dairy, Youran livestock and local producers raised the concerns of quality and consistent supply.

As the Canola Council of Canada canola meal representative in Asia, I addressed questions with analysis data and provided differentiation between traditional rapeseed meal and typical double-low rapeseed meal.

In a recent study, Chaouki Benchaar, research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Sherbrooke, Quebec, provided dairy cows with diets containing canola meal and soybean meal at various inclusion rates. When canola meal replaced some or all of the soybean meal, dry matter intake and energy corrected milk production both increased.

Chinese canola meal customers visit Canada

Manitoba canola grower Charles Fossay demonstrates canola roots to a representative from C&D, a large Chinese importer of Canadian Four different diets canola meal.

Representatives from companies C&D and Mingsui, China’s two largest importers of Canadian canola meal, visited Canada in early July. Canola Council of Canada took them on a tour of Charles Fossay’s canola farm near Starbuck, Manitoba. Fossay is a director with the Canola Council of Canada. For the companies, this was their first time seeing Canadian agriculture in action and experiencing canola fields in bloom. The CCC plans to continue fostering relations with these two companies. China represents a market of significant importance for Canadian canola meal. The CCC saw record exports of canola meal to China in the 2022-23 crop year and anticipates further increases in meal export volumes as canola processing expansion takes place in Canada.