With the opening of the “2024 Beef Trade Cooperation Development Conference” in Yangxin County, Binzhou City, the small local specialty product connects farmers’ income with rural development vitality.

“One in every four people in the county is engaged in the beef industry; 12% of the county’s annual GDP is contributed by the beef industry; with an annual slaughter capacity of 1.2 million beef cattle, it ranks first among county-level regions in China; it has been selected as part of the province’s ‘Top Ten’ industry cluster and the Yellow River’s advantageous beef cattle industry cluster…”

These are the latest statistics on the “Yangxin Beef” industry, indicating that the beef industry has become a pillar industry for wealth creation and business development in Yangxin, Binzhou, driving a surge in high-quality economic development.

As the primary sector evolves from family workshops and independent operations into an industrial cluster through the coordination of various competitive elements, even a small local specialty can bear the banner of regional economic development. Industrial clusters often become the main battlefield for industrial upgrades in a city, the primary engine for technological innovation, and the main front for cultivating new productive forces.

“In recent years, we have focused on our unique advantages and fully promoted the high-quality development of the beef industry, achieving an annual revenue scale of 66 billion yuan. We established a modern agricultural industrial park and were selected for the advantageous beef cattle industry cluster along the Yellow River and Shandong Province’s characteristic industry cluster. We hosted the China Beef Industry Development Conference and the China Beef Processing Innovation Development Conference,” mentioned Song Yongxiang, Secretary of the Binzhou Municipal Committee, during his speech at the conference.

“Especially, we are striving to extend the industry chain through deep integration, continuously enhancing the ‘strong first, connect second and third’ strategy. We have built China’s first 10,000-head beef cattle 5G ranch and the first county-level designated customs supervision area for imported meat, creating the Niuzhigu Industrial Park with five major functions: bonded customs clearance, smart cold chain, data center, standard production, and comprehensive inspection.”

Recently, the Shandong Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs organized the development and implementation of eight special industry plans focused on local specialties, with “Yangxin Beef” included among them.

Yangxin County has a cultivated area of 800,000 acres and is a major production area for fine livestock breeds such as the Luxi Yellow Cattle and Bohai Black Cattle. It boasts various high-quality beef breeds, including Angus, Simmental, Limousin, and Charolais. Notably, Yangxin County has developed a high-end new breed—Lurong Black Cattle—by utilizing the advantageous genes of Luxi Yellow and Bohai Black cattle, combined with crossbreeding with Australian and Mongolian cattle, filling the gap in high-end beef breeds in China.In terms of the Yangxin beef industry, there are 76 beef slaughtering enterprises with an annual slaughter capacity of 1.2 million heads, ranking first at the county level in the country. There are 429 beef processing enterprises certified by SC, processing 600,000 tons of beef annually.

At the Yiliyuan 5G ranch in Yangxin, a high-quality Lurong Black Cattle can be valued at up to 200,000 yuan. The ranch covers 500 acres with a total investment of 120 million yuan and is currently China’s first digital smart ranch managed using 5G technology. It integrates IoT and AI technologies into its information platform, utilizing smart ear tags, a central kitchen, AI monitoring, and other information capture devices for comprehensive management of breeding, reproduction, and fattening of beef cattle.

In Yangxin, technological innovation permeates every stage of the beef production process, from the birth of cattle to the end market. The region has innovatively implemented the “Internet + Transparent Factory” model, using coding management to collect and trace data throughout the entire lifecycle of beef cattle, ensuring quality safety and traceability at every step.

As one of China’s top 100 livestock counties and the main area for the Shandong Province beef cattle industry cluster along the Yellow River, Yangxin County promotes an integrated model of “breeding, raising, and processing” with a regional public brand value of 21.026 billion yuan for “Yangxin Beef.”

In the first half of 2024, Yangxin County achieved a total livestock output value of 1.92454 billion yuan, an increase of 114.06 million yuan, with a growth rate of 6.3%.

Currently, Yangxin County has been approved as one of the first pilot projects for common modernization by the National Ethnic Affairs Commission of China, forming cross-regional collaborations with Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Tibet, Gansu, and Jilin, and expanding its global “circle of friends” to 31 countries and over 400 processing enterprises. It is exploring the import of live cattle from Australia and Kazakhstan and plans to establish overseas ranches and slaughterhouses in countries like Uruguay.

Yangxin County has a clear goal, focusing on the three projects of breed cultivation, brand promotion, and quality enhancement, and aims to follow a “high-end development” path, realizing the vision of “cattle raised globally, meat produced in Yangxin, consumed throughout China” as soon as possible.