2026 World Dairy Conference to Be Held in Hohhot as Local Industry Revenue Tops 300 Billion RMB

The 2026 World Dairy Conference will be held in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. The dairy industry, a strategic livelihood sector vital to national nutrition and health, is also a key pillar of the global food supply chain. As the "Dairy Capital of China," "World Dairy Science and Technology Capital," and "China's Dairy Breeding Capital," Hohhot has formed the largest, most complete, and strongest dairy industry cluster in China. In 2025, the local dairy industry's full-chain revenue exceeded 300 billion RMB, securing a place in the global dairy landscape. Facing the new trends of green transformation and industrial chain upgrading in the global dairy industry, revitalizing China's dairy sector requires sustained innovation and upgrading.

Every leap in the dairy industry is essentially a contest of innovation. As a key national base for agricultural and livestock products, Hohhot has nurtured two world-class dairy companies, Yili and Mengniu, building a complete industrial chain from "a blade of grass to a glass of milk to a piece of cheese," underpinned by technological innovation. Yili has established 15 innovation centers worldwide, forming a global innovation network that has achieved multiple "from nothing" breakthroughs in production, product development, and consumer terminals. Mengniu has implemented a "one body, two wings" strategy, building a three-tier research system covering basic nutrition, functional nutrition, and medical nutrition, evolving from a dairy product company to an integrated nutrition and health solution provider. Relying on innovation, Yili and Mengniu have rapidly grown into top ten global dairy companies.

Despite significant achievements, China's dairy industry faces new challenges. Per capita dairy consumption in China is lower than in developed countries, with large disparities in consumption habits between urban and rural areas and across regions, leading to an imbalanced dairy product consumption structure. Functional dairy ingredients such as whey protein, casein, and lactoferrin have long been heavily dependent on imports, requiring enhanced innovation and R&D. Small and medium-sized dairy enterprises have weak competitiveness and are heavily impacted by market fluctuations during cyclical adjustments, lacking internal growth momentum. Many dairy farmers have insufficient risk resistance, struggling to cope with low milk prices and weak sustainable development capabilities. Empowering industrial upgrading through technological innovation has become an inevitable choice for China's dairy industry to break through bottlenecks and move toward becoming a dairy powerhouse.

From a global opportunity perspective, the rapid iteration of digital intelligence, biological breeding, and green processing technologies is reshaping the global dairy competitive landscape. Smart farming, precision nutrition, and low-carbon processing have become mainstream directions for dairy powerhouse development, providing favorable external conditions for China to close technological gaps and achieve leapfrogging, but the key remains in doing innovation well.

In response to domestic consumption market changes, the industrial and product structure must be continuously optimized. Based on national nutrition needs, efforts should focus on developing deep-processed dairy products, including cheese and functional dairy products, to absorb seasonal surplus milk, enrich the product matrix, extend the industrial chain, and enhance the value chain, moving away from low-end homogeneous price competition. Active participation in international market competition, raising industry-wide production standards, and relying on solid quality as a core support will drive China's dairy industry into the global market.

Improving the industry-university-research collaborative innovation system is essential to activate innovation momentum. Revitalizing the dairy industry requires integrating innovation resources and actively building an integrated innovation consortium of "research institutes, universities, leading enterprises, and farms," connecting the entire chain from basic research, pilot testing, to industrial application, to solve the low conversion rate of scientific achievements. Increasing investment in dairy technology innovation, guiding enterprises to raise the proportion of R&D expenditure, and having the government focus on supporting long-term, fundamental, and forward-looking technological research, while regulating industry innovation order, will create a stable and sustainable dairy innovation ecosystem.

Focusing on upstream foundational weaknesses, efforts should be made to advance innovation in seed sources, forage, and equipment. Continuous improvement of dairy cows, building an independent breeding system, and cultivating high-yield, disease-resistant, and long-lived high-quality cow populations will reduce dependence on core foreign seed sources. Strengthening R&D on high-quality forage seed breeding and standardized planting techniques will stabilize feed supply and lower farming costs. Accelerating the development and promotion of domestic equipment for intelligent milking, precision feeding, disease monitoring, and deep dairy processing will fill gaps in key equipment, laying a solid foundation for independent and controllable innovation from the source.