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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

Warning

This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

DAIRY INDUSTRY

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Growth of Dairying

New Zealand had no cattle prior to the European settlement. In the early nineteenth century a few European cattle were brought to the first settlements, usually coastal. The cows increased and their milk supplied local demands. But distance prohibited overseas trade in dairy produce until refrigeration made it possible. The first refrigerated cargo left New Zealand in 1882 and the volume of dairy produce exported from New Zealand has increased ever since. Centrifugal separators in dairy factories (1885) were another important innovation. These give an efficient recovery of butterfat from milk. The introduction of smaller separators on farms allows those some distance from factories to be used for dairying. In areas with poor roads it was easier to transport cream than the more bulky milk.

The new dairy industry grew rapidly. Large areas of new land were cleared for farming; the use of fertilisers, particularly phosphates, improved strains of pasture plants, and better methods of pasture management made possible the feeding of larger numbers of dairy cows. The rate of increase in cow numbers varied, but the total continued to increase until the Second World War when, chiefly because of labour shortages, it fell a little, only to rise again more rapidly immediately after the war. This expansion ended about 1950 and, during the decade 1950–60, dairy cow numbers varied between about 1,900,000 and the peak of about 2,000,000.

The increased dairy production was not due alone to increases in the number of cows. The average productivity of cows, too, has increased steadily rather than spectacularly, and has continued after the numbers of cows were stabilised. It has almost certainly been due largely to improved feeding, milking, and disease control.


Next Part: Breeds of Cattle