Organic milk close to China delivery

AUSTRALIA’S largest dairy farm plans to export organic products to China by mid-year.

Van Diemen’s Land Company, through its sister company Van Dairy, will start export of its VAN Dairy-branded organic UHT milk and yoghurt to China by the end of June.

There have been roadblocks to weekly delivery of fresh milk from Hobart to Ningbo, but the Mercury revealed yesterday the regulatory approvals from Chinese authorities were now just “weeks away”.

Premier Will Hodgman said: “There is a lot of interest locally and more positive announcements are to come.”

VDL, owned by Moon Lake Investments, soon should have Chinese organic farm certification for three of its 25 dairy farms.

Last year Moon Lake announced that, in collaboration with the Cradle Coast Natural Resource Management, it had planted more than 6000 native trees and shrubs on more than 4ha to provide a buffer for three of its far North-West dairy farms — Robbins Dairy at Woolnorth, Poilinna at Edith Creek and Talawa at Trowutta.

Together the three dairies will create a commercial-scale organic farm business of about 1650 cows on almost 790ha and double the annual production of organic milk in Tas- mania to 7.5 million litres.

VAN milk is on shelves in China and Moon Lake chairman Xianfeng Lu said its growing profile was good news.

“It’s great news for our farmers in Tasmania, our customers in China, and everyone in between,” Mr Lu said.

Qantas is still seeking regulatory approvals from Chinese authorities to carry the milk.

A Qantas spokeswoman said the airline hoped the deal could be confirmed soon.