Mr Viral
Editor’s note: Wei Yiran and Phagpa Sherab are Ph.D. candidates in environmental management at Peking University. This article is based on their field research exploring the influence of imported meat on herders and the meat industry ecosystem in pastoral regions on China’s western Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
“Herders of my generation are all addicted to eating meat,” says Sangye, a 60-year-old former herder living in China’s northwestern Gansu province. “I’d often drink fresh cow and sheep blood, as well as eat internal organs like raw lamb liver and gallbladder. Our diet is probably very bloody to you.”
Like many other ethnic Tibetans who grew up as nomads raising livestock in the pastoral region on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Sangye feels he couldn’t survive a day without eating meat. In his younger days, he would gallop on horseback through the rangelands of the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, tending to his livestock and slaughtering them as needed to feed his family. Yet, those days are long gone. Now, he drives a sanitation truck in a county town.
Beside him as we talk is a plate of freshly cooked lamb, although not from a local family raising grass-fed animals — this lamb was shipped from overseas, likely from New Zealand, Uruguay, or Brazil. Wherever it comes from, Tibetan herders call all imported, grain-fed meat products like this by the same name: “Fake meat.”
“When herders talk about eating meat, we mean meat that we’ve shredded with our own hands,” says Sangye, who feels that imported meat is acceptable in noodles and other dishes, but when boiled and eaten directly, it lacks the strong flavor of locally sourced meat. To make it more palatable, he cooks “fake meat” wrapped in grass-fed lamb intestines.
Sangye used to raise cattle and sheep on land that was allocated to his family during China’s grassland tenure reforms, which were rolled out between 1984 and the late 1990s. However, the land comprised mostly treacherous terrain and had no water source, meaning he had to spend two hours a day crossing other people’s land just to fetch drinking water for his family and their livestock.
In 2000, he decided to sell all his animals, rent his pasture to another herder, and move with his wife and children to the nearby town, where he opened a billiard hall. Later, with help from his brother, he landed a job driving a sanitation truck, and his wife became a sanitation worker.
However, the increased cost of living in the urban center has put a strain on the family finances. “Life is tough here,” Sangye says. “I have to buy cheap (imported) beef and lamb when I’m short on money, even though they’re not comparable to local meat.”
Former nomadic herders who have settled in towns across Gansu and neighboring Qinghai province — there are more than 500,000 in Qinghai alone — are the biggest individual consumers of imported meat products in the pastoral region on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, mainly due to the lower price compared with domestic grass-fed beef, lamb, mutton, and yak meat.
Ma Chuan runs a shop selling grain, oil, and meat in the busiest part of Gannan’s Xiahe County and has stocked imported beef for decades. He says that from 2014 to 2020, the retail price of New Zealand beef remained stable at around 20 to 25 yuan ($2.75 to $3.50) per 500 grams, on average 8 to 12 yuan cheaper than local beef.
Sonam, who runs a Tibetan restaurant in a tourist village, similarly recalls that when he opened his business in 2014, the price difference between local and imported beef was 12 to 15 yuan per 500 grams. As a result, his and many other eateries began sourcing beef from other countries.
After visiting 14 butcher shops in Maqu and Xiahe counties, which are 300 kilometers apart, we discovered that outlets have been selling imported meat products since 2008, although initially sales were low, and it was typically advertised as “local fattened meat” rather than from overseas. Sales began to pick up around 2016 and increased significantly in the following years. Of the 31 stores selling beef, lamb, and yak meat in Maqu today, only six exclusively sell local grass-fed varieties.
The herders still working in the pastoral areas also consume imported meat. In a survey we conducted of 50 households in one Qinghai county, 32 said that they purchase beef and lamb shipped from abroad, spending on average 7,106 yuan a year.
Following the herd
In addition to the price advantage, the influence of some Tibetan Buddhist ideologies requiring non-violence and the growing reluctance among young people in the pastoral areas to slaughter their own livestock are major cultural factors driving the consumption of imported meat.
“I’m a traditional herder and have no hesitation in slaughtering cattle and sheep, as this is a way of life passed down through generations,” says Sangye. “But now, young people are afraid to kill, and some don’t even engage in sausage-making and butchering.” In his opinion, a herder should have one hand stained with blood, while the other holds prayer beads to pray for the lives he has taken.
In the Tibetan herder culture, men are traditionally responsible for “red work,” which includes slaughtering, skinning, butchering, and sausage making, while women handle “white work,” such as milking, churning butter, and fermenting yogurt. No part of the animal is wasted: Sheepskins are used to make coats, pants, and bags; cowhide is turned into rope, boots, and rafts; and horns and bones are transformed into spoons, knife handles and sheaths, toys, and containers.
This diverse range of livestock products once formed the foundation of traditional rangeland pastoral industries. For example, before the 1950s, wool from Nagchu, in the Xizang Autonomous Region, was the area’s largest foreign trade commodity, according to a monograph by the anthropologist Ge Le. Yet, herders today struggle to make an income from selling such goods. Over the past two decades, the pastoral livestock industry has transformed into a single-product market revolving around fresh meat.
Sheep herds and horses used to be ubiquitous on the rangelands of Maqu County, but are now a rare sight, with most families keeping only yaks. In addition to this shift in inventory, the economic value of livestock products has also declined.
“In the past, we used to sell not only live animals but also yak wool, sheep wool, cow hair, sheepskins, cowhides, and various dairy products,” says Dompa, a herder from Maqu. “Now, we still sell dairy products, but other products have lost their value. A decade ago, a sheepskin could sell for 50 to 100 yuan, and a cowhide for 150 to 200 yuan, but no one comes to buy these anymore, and 1 kilogram of wool sells for just 5 to 6 yuan, which doesn’t even cover the cost of shearing the sheep. Selling live animals has become the herders’ only source of income.”
And even that source is fraught with uncertainty. In the Tibetan language, yaks are called “nor,” meaning “treasure” or “wealth.” For generations, nomadic families on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have relied on the animal to survive. But in the modern era, its cultural significance, and functional and economic value, have diminished. A herder’s income now depends on how much meat their yaks will produce and the fluctuating market price.
In September and October, herders in Gannan will transfer their livestock from their summer pastures to lower-altitude autumn pastures in preparation for winter. During this period, they will sell any livestock that needs to be culled or replaced — to optimize the size and composition of the herd — either by working with a middleman or taking them directly to a slaughterhouse.
Considering transportation costs and the time involved in communicating with the slaughterhouse, most would prefer to wait for a middleman to make an approach. However, since 2020, livestock prices in the pastoral areas have steadily fallen amid a sluggish market. As a result, interest among middlemen has faded, leaving more herders with no option but to take their livestock to the marketplace themselves to sell at the best price they can get.
In September, the courtyard of one livestock market we visited in Maqu was filled with vehicles loaded with cattle and sheep. Female yaks aged over 5 years fetched just 3,500 to 6,000 yuan last year, down from a high of 10,000 to 13,000 yuan in 2019. In the past five years, the price has dropped by roughly 1,000 yuan annually.
According to our survey, livestock sales account for up to 70% of herder household incomes in pastoral counties. Hence, the continuous decline in price is posing significant challenges, while families are also being impacted by the rising costs of animal fodder.
Tashi, a herder with a wife and 10-year-old son, has about 233,300 square meters of rangeland in Xiahe, but needs to pay 50,000 yuan a year in rent to secure additional space for his herd of 50 yaks and 230 sheep. He also spends another 55,000 yuan a year on grass fodder. “If we had fewer animals, it would be impossible to earn a living,” he says.
In 2023, he sold his livestock for 90,000 yuan, barely covering the cost of rearing them, let alone the living expenses for a family of three. To stay afloat, Tashi had to secure a loan of 300,000 yuan.
Once butchers, tanners, and craftsmen, herders today must rely solely on selling their herds, earning meager incomes that enable them to afford only cheap imported meat.
Rising volume
China actually began importing frozen beef in 1992, but it took another 20 years before it began gaining traction in the market. From April to December 2012, the price of locally sourced beef increased by 35% year on year due to a sharp reduction in domestic stock and slaughter volume. In that same year, the import volume of Australian frozen beef reached more than 28,000 tons, up from less than 7,000 tons in 2011, according to Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry.
In 2018, China further opened its market to beef imports from 10 more countries and regions, including Argentina and Uruguay, eventually taking the total number to 24. Between 2015 and 2023, the total import volume increased from 474,000 tons to 2.74 million tons, while the country’s beef self-sufficiency rate dropped from 92.9% to 73%.
For the past four years, 42% of China’s beef imports have come from Brazil, its largest supplier. The country’s biggest meat processing company, JBS Foods, reported $18.4 billion in export revenue in 2023, with 25.4% of its products heading to China. Many Brazilian beef and lamb products from brands like Friboi, a JBS subsidiary, and GJ can be found in stores across the pastoral areas on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau .
For the herders in Gannan, it remains a mystery how meat from Brazil — which is frozen and transported over 16,000 kilometers — can sell for so much less than locally sourced supplies. Last year, the average price of imported beef was 34 yuan per kilogram, roughly half the price of beef produced in China.
Brazil’s vast rangelands and stable climate provide natural advantages for its livestock industry. However, its practice of clearing rainforests for cattle grazing has been controversial. According to the 2022 Beef Report, an overview of the nation’s livestock industry, the number of intensively farmed cattle slaughtered each year has more than tripled since 2001, from 2.06 million to 6.73 million. In addition, the proportion of slaughtered cattle over 3 years old has dropped from 47% to 11%.
Furthermore, Brazil’s beef industry chain is almost entirely controlled by meat processors, with JBS Foods leading the pack, carrying out everything from breeding and slaughtering to selling and exporting. This reduces export costs while achieving higher profits.
Caught in a dilemma
Herders in Gannan argue that breeding methods directly impact the quality of the meat and believe that they can easily discern whether an animal was grain-fed or reared in a feedlot, a housing and feeding operation used in intensive farming.
Yaks reared on natural pastures graze on a variety of plants and get more exercise, resulting in coarser muscle fibers, a tougher texture, and a chewy, firm bite. Those from high-altitude regions are also considered superior in terms of nutritional content, as well as protein and fat levels.
However, health is rarely a priority during marketization; low prices and profit margins come first. While merchants in pastoral areas on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau value the nutritional benefits of grass-fed yak meat, believing no other products can compare, they are also acutely aware of the inefficiencies of natural pasture grazing due to the local climate.
In winter, when the rangelands of northwestern China are covered in snow, the cattle, yaks, and sheep nourished by lush summer pastures begin to lose weight, as their food intake decreases and they expend more energy. In late spring, the weather warms, the pastures regrow, and the livestock enter a new growth cycle. However, the frequency and amount of grazing on natural pastures are inconsistent, as the availability of grass is uncertain. This means it can be difficult to control the fattening of livestock.
Of course, wholesale businesses have spotted opportunities in this uncertainty. They purchase yaks from herders and transport them to centralized breeding bases, where they are given formulated feed, helping the animals gain weight and making the meat more tender. This not only supplies the massive domestic market but also flows to every corner of the pastoral region, joining imported meat in competing with naturally grass-fed yak meat.
Since 2022, China has seen declines in both beef and live cattle prices, according to the Bureau of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services. In September, the average price for a live cow or bull was just over 25 yuan per kilogram, with fresh beef costing 68 yuan per kilogram, the lowest price for five years.
These days, a herder in Xiahe or Maqu can earn about 6,500 yuan for a grass-fed adult yak weighing 250 kilograms, while rearing it requires about 1,500 yuan, excluding the costs of labor and maintaining the natural pastures. To cover an average family’s living expenses, they would need to sell at least 10 yaks a year.
This lowest-price competition threatens the livelihoods of rangeland herders and leaves them facing a tough dilemma: Should they accept their losses and sell their livestock quickly, or invest more in rearing the animals and wait for prices to rebound?
When we met herder Nyima at a livestock marketplace in Maqu, he’d already been waiting for two days for prices to rise so he could sell his three yaks. His family originally had a herd of 60, and in 2021 he secured a 150,000 yuan loan to buy more. But as prices continued to drop, his income dwindled, causing him to fall behind on the repayments. When he defaulted on the loan, a court froze his assets.
The stress put immense strain on his marriage, and Nyima and his wife divorced in 2023. Today, he and his sons have 39 yaks and two horses, along with crippling debts. Yet, despite his financial problems, Nyima refuses to eat anything other than locally sourced meat — it’s one of the few things he feels he has control over.
“I eat only yak meat and Tibetan mutton,” he says. “I never buy fattened or imported beef or lamb. ‘Fake meat’ not only tastes bad but also affects herders’ lives and the market for local beef and lamb.”
For Nyima, like many herders in his position, the growing dominance of imported meat products in the Chinese market leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
(To protect the privacy of interviewees, all names have been changed.)
The original article is a cross-publication by TyingKnots and Foodthink. It was supported by Foodthink, a Beijing-based nonprofit dedicated to improving communication, knowledge, and expertise sharing of sustainable food systems. In 2024, Foodthink provided 18 grants to support journalists and researchers in investigating the fields of food and agriculture.
A version of this article originally appeared in TyingKnots. It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is republished here with permission.
Translator: Vincent Chow; contributions: Wang Ze’en and Zeng Yukun; editors: Wang Juyi and Hao Qibao; visuals: Ding Yining.
(Header image: A herdswoman at work in Hainan County, Qinghai province, 2019. Zhu Haihua/VCG)
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