Corporate Social Disclosure: The Case of China’s Milk Product Industry

China’s milk production has undergone rapid growth over the past three decades. Several factors have contributed to this expansion. Firstly, the Chinese government has taken a variety of measures to promote dairy production and consumption. These included the introduction of a school lunch program that provided subsidized milk for schoolchildren, aiming to promote milk consumption and production in the rural areas; provision of technical and financial support to farmers, to improve dairy farming (Wang et al., 2010); and the introduction of the so-called Grassland Law, which was enacted to protect and make rational use of grasslands and to improve the ecological environment and biodiversity of animals (Muhammad et al., 2009). Secondly, urban residents have gradually developed a preference for dairy products, owing to a general increase in wealth and recognition of the nutritional value brought by such products (Wang & Zhang, 2004). In addition, China’s dairy industry is dominated by over 500,000 farm households, with each family having one to five cows. More and more farm households are eager to profit from the supply of milk, leading to the expansion of the dairy farming business (Lohmar et al., 2009). Thirdly, international organizations, foreign governments and multinational enterprises have provided technical and financial investment to China in order to support the dairy industry.