Pork, apparently, is for the plebes. TIME looks into an American-owned company that’s set up camp in Inner Mongolia to help provide the Middle Kingdom’s wealthy with more filet mignon:
Earlier this year, Western Cattle started to raise Holsteins on an American-style ranch and feedlot built in the wide open spaces of Inner Mongolia. Their goal: deliver truckloads of well-marbled beef to the waiting plates of urban China’s growing middle class. With a target herd of 75,000, U.S.-based Western Cattle has the potential to be the leading company in the third-largest beef-producing nation in the world. And if the company’s Western take on raising cattle catches on in the East, it could kick start the consolidation of China’s disorganized beef-production chain, bringing to Inner Mongolia all the high-volume efficiency ” and social and environmental concerns ” that go with big agriculture. [Full Text]
[Image: A Chinese-subtitlted guide to cuts of beef, from the Western Cattle Company website.]
