Fonterra aids rural poor in Shanxi

Fonterra Co-operative Group, a leader in global dairy nutrition and the world's biggest exporter of dairy products, made a donation worth 200,000 yuan ($30,000) earlier last month to hundreds of infants, pregnant women and elderly villagers in Yingxian county, Shanxi province.

The dairy producer selected the county as the location for its initiative called "Fonterra sends love to the countryside" mainly because it is where its second farm hub in China was established. Since beginning operations in 2013, the farm hub has actively recruited local employees and worked closely with the community. To date, about 17,000 cows have been raised on the hub's farms, where roughly 180 million liters of milk is produced each year.

During the construction and development of the farm hub, Fonterra said it had learned that the nutrition and health levels of the local villagers were comparatively low and that the intake of dairy products among children, pregnant women and the elderly was inadequate.