Ambassadors, diplomatic representatives from ASEAN countries and partners visited TH Group’s high-tech concentrated dairy cow farm cluster project in the province’s Nghĩa Đàn District. — VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Dairy maker TH Group plans to raise the number of cows in its closed breeding chain to 200,000 by 2025.

The information was released at the ASEAN Centrality and TH Group Meeting held in the central province of Nghệ An on Saturday.

Ambassadors, diplomatic representatives from ASEAN countries and partners visited and learned about TH Group’s high-tech concentrated dairy cow farm cluster project in the province’s Nghĩa Đàn District. The event aimed to introduce a high-tech agricultural model that has changed the socio-economic situation of the locality, representing Việt Nam's national brand to ASEAN countries and partners.

Hoàng Nghĩa Hiếu, Vice Chairman of Nghệ An Provincial People's Committee, said although this year has seen many challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters, the province has achieved GDP growth of 3.4 per cent, of which agriculture growth is 4.76 per cent.

“For such growth, we highly appreciated TH Group for the agricultural sector as the most difficult field to change the face of Nghệ An’s agriculture. In particular, TH Group has the largest high-tech dairy farm in Asia and the largest dairy processing plant in Southeast Asia,” he added.

TH Group has close economic relationships with many ASEAN partners, including New Zealand, the US and Australia.

Tal Cohen, General Director of TH Dairy Foods Joint Stock Company, which operates the farm cluster, has evaluated the US as one of TH's important partners for 10 years. Fodder and production materials such as grass, straw, cotton seeds and rye have been imported from the US since 2011.

American agricultural machinery has been also used at TH’s large fields in Nghệ An and Thanh Hóa provinces. TH has three times imported purebred Holstein Friesian high-yield dairy cows from the US. TH’s import turnover from the US is expected to increase greatly in the future.

TH Group has 18 times imported high-yield dairy cows from New Zealand. TH Farm also employs New Zealand’s world-leading veterinary standards and experts.

In 2019, TH Group acquired three farm zones in Northern Australia (Argyle and Auvergne) and Newry, including cattle, factories and equipment, to initiate a partnership with Australia.

TH Group has work with distribution partners in ASEAN. TH milk, dairy products, and juices are sold in many large supermarket chains in ASEAN countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Cambodia.

Thái Hương, founder and Chairwoman of TH Group said: “I hope you will be the bridge to promote the co-operation between TH and your countries for the common benefit. Reality has been proven that in economic or pandemic crisis, agriculture, developing clean, high-quality organic agricultural products would be salvation.”

With the dairy cow breeding and high-tech milk processing project, TH Group has contributed to reducing dependence on imported powdered milk. The proportion of liquid milk processed from reconstituted milk powder in the market has decreased from 92 per cent in 2008 to current below 60 per cent. — VNS