F.C. firms team for $10M dairy deal

FORT COLLINS – Machines that could change the Chinese dairy industry forever are currently being unloaded and installed because of the work of two Fort Collins companies.

DakoCytomation and XY Inc. signed a joint deal worth more than $10 million in machinery and scientific services to help improve milk production in China.

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The Chinese dairy industry is considered one of the poorest in the world. In 2001, China’s 5.6 million cows produced 10.2 million tons of milk. By comparison, America’s 9.1 million cows produced 75 million tons of milk in the same year.

The Babcock Institute for International Dairy Research and Development estimates the output of milk in all of China is similar to that of Wisconsin. The institute also credits the Chinese government for recognizing the benefits of milk to the entire population, not just the sick, young and old, as one of the factors for the increased dairy demand.

“So many children in China are receiving inadequate dairy supplies and therefore are suffering from calcium deficiencies,´ said Mervyn Jacobson, president and CEO of XY Inc. “It is a priority to bring new and modern dairy industry to these people.”

In dairy cows, female calves are preferred to males because they are the milk producers of the future. XY’s technology allows the bull semen to be separated to increase the chances of successful female births.

Jacobson said the ultimate goal is to improve the milk quality and production level of each generation of cows.

“Basically the dairymen are only interested in having daughters and they want future daughters to be genetically improved and produce more milk,” he said.

The sperm is separated by DakoCytomation’s MoFlo High-Speed Cell Sorters to produce the desired X chromosome-bearing sperm.

DakoCytomation provided China National Animal Breeding Stock Import and Export Corp. with 24 sperm sorters. The instruments are a new generation of DakoCytomation’s traditional cell sorting cytometers.

XY Inc. is provides the training and expertise on sorting cattle sperm for the purpose of sex selection.

“We are excited for this new opportunity to expand into the agricultural market and bring new technology to China’s fledgling dairy industry,´ said Jes Ostergaard, president and CEO of DakoCytomation in a prepared statement.

Officials with DakoCytomation declined to be interviewed for this story.

The DakoCytomation-XY agreement continues to strengthen Fort Collins’ ties to the Chinese dairy industry. Last month Eternal Technologies Group Inc., a Chinese biotech company, said it was planning to build a dairy in Northern Colorado to supply dairy cow embryos. The embryos would be artificially implanted in carrier cows in Mongolia.

“By buying cows from the U.S. or Canada or Australia … they leapfrog genetically from the Third World into having a modern cow herd,” Tom Gilligan, general manager of XY Inc., said of the strategy employed by Eternal Technologies.

A cow born in China from an embryo transfer started in the United States “is no different than if it had remained in its mother here,” Gilligan said.