Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has spearheaded an effort to bring more milk into the Chinese diet. The first step is importing cows. Duncan Kennedy at BBC News has the story:

China wants more cows. Lots more. Especially dairy cattle.

It is all part of its plan to increase its annual national milk production to to 64 million tonnes by 2020 from the current 38 million tonnes.

Why? Well it seems the Chinese have woken up to milk's nutritional value.

Right now, the average Chinese consumer ingests about 30 litres (53 pints) of milk a year. Compare that with the average European who laps up about 225 litres a year. China even lags behind the world average, which is about 89 litres.

The message to consume more has come from the top.

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Photo by Geert Orye