From 17% to full coverage, National People's Congress delegate Wei Lihua: Promote the "Student Milk Program" for inclusive supply and legislation on student nutrition

This article is from Times Finance. Author: Wu Jiamin and Li Qian.

The construction of a Healthy China has always been a concern for people’s livelihoods, with the nutritional health protection of children and adolescents being a key focus.

During the 2026 National Two Sessions, Wei Lihua, a deputy to the National People’s Congress and Chairman and CEO of Junlebao Dairy Group, proposed promoting the nationwide “Student Milk Drinking Program” to ensure inclusive access. He focused on the challenges in promoting the “Student Milk Drinking Plan” and called for full coverage of compulsory education stages.

Deputy to the National People’s Congress, Wei Lihua, Chairman and CEO of Junlebao Dairy Group

Dairy products are an essential nutritional source for the growth and development of adolescents. Scientific milk consumption plays an irreplaceable role in improving nutritional levels and promoting physical health. Since the launch of the “Student Milk Drinking Plan” in 2000, it has covered 31 provinces, regions, and cities nationwide. In 2024, the daily supply reached 26.72 million servings, making it an important livelihood project to improve adolescent nutrition.

Behind these figures, there are still regional disparities and scale differences in the popularization of student milk in China. Currently, only about 17% of students in compulsory education are covered, with over 80% not yet reached. In contrast, coverage rates in countries like the UK and Finland have reached 100%. There is still significant room for improvement in China’s student milk promotion.

“Promoting the student milk plan to achieve inclusive benefits is a common practice internationally,” Wei Lihua pointed out in his proposal. According to a report by the International Dairy Federation, the student milk drinking program has been implemented in over 104 countries worldwide. Data shows that 61% of these programs provide free milk to students, 34% offer subsidized prices, and government-led, financially supported models are the mainstream successful approaches internationally.

Therefore, Wei Lihua suggested incorporating the student milk drinking program into the national basic public education services and establishing a financial support mechanism. This not only addresses the fairness of adolescent nutrition but also drives the upgrading of the entire dairy industry chain through scaled demand, injecting industrial momentum into rural revitalization.

To smoothly transition from “partial coverage” to “comprehensive inclusive benefits,” Wei Lihua proposed a phased approach: prioritize starting in concentrated, severely impoverished areas and rural primary schools, then gradually expand nationwide. On funding, he recommended establishing a shared financial responsibility mechanism between central and local governments, with a focus on supporting central and western regions and rural areas.

Wei Lihua also emphasized the need to strengthen quality and safety supervision across the entire chain, strictly enforce labeling management of student drinking milk, and improve cold chain distribution and traceability systems from production to consumption. Additionally, he called for promoting campus food education and integrating nutrition and health knowledge into daily education to guide students toward scientific milk-drinking habits. In the long term, he also advocates for legislation on student nutrition to clarify responsibilities through legal means and ensure the sustained and standardized development of this livelihood project.

The realization of inclusive supply depends on a solid industrial foundation. Currently, 176 companies have obtained the “China Student Drinking Milk Mark” license, with a daily raw milk processing capacity of 94,000 tons, providing strong support for expanding the program.

Times Finance has learned that Junlebao’s student milk is now available in 17 provinces and nearly 10,000 schools nationwide. “Improving student nutrition is a great project that benefits the present and future generations,” Wei Lihua stated. He expressed his commitment to continue promoting the inclusive supply of student milk and contributing more to enhancing national health and building a “Healthy China.”