The Dairy Exporter in 1971

As NZ Dairy Exporter counts down to its centenary in 2025, we look back at the issues of earlier decades. 50 Years Ago – September 1971.

One hundred years ago this month, New Zealand’s co-operative dairy industry was brought into being by the enterprise and courage of seven forward-looking settlers on the Otago Peninsula. The founders of the Otago Peninsula Co-operative Cheese Factory Co. Ltd, in establishing their infant company on co-operative lines, laid down principles of operation and policy which set the pattern for our dairy industry today.

History indicates that the outlook of the promoters of New Zealand’s first cooperative dairy company was fair minded and generous and, above all, they were united in their determination to control their own destiny. The work of those pioneers was well and truly done. The spirit in which they established their enterprise has lived on and provided the central pulse of this industry up through the years.

There is every justification for the claim that the dairy industry is a cornerstone of the New Zealand economy. In the trading year ended March 31, 1971 our export earnings from milk products set a new record of $250 million. With the value of dairy meat exports added, the total was $320 million, or close to 30 per cent of New Zealand’s total overseas exchange receipts in the past financial year.

More than 3000 NZ farmers refined their techniques and blended ideas in discussion groups where Dairy Board consulting officers were involved last year. The number of groups topped 300 for the first time in 20 years after the system of regular discussions for dairy farmers was devised.

The value of the scheme cannot be measured precisely but clearly it has been a vital factor in developing modern efficient farm practices. And it has a bountiful return in human terms as well in encouraging a “help your neighbour” attitude. The Board’s Director of Farm Production, Mr J. W. Stichbury, who was associated with the first discussion group at Runciman, south of Auckland, in 1951, believes that at least one third of New Zealand dairy farmers are now benefiting from the system. This is either from direct involvement as members of groups or from a “rippling effect” through the farming community.

If scientists should ever realise a long-held dream of pre-determining sex, there is no doubt that in the human context it might raise serious ethical, not to say emotional, problems, but the possibility of such developments in the livestock world opens up vast new opportunities.

The internationally known Cytogenetics Unit at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, may soon be publishing some work on the study of chromosomes, which determine sex as well as other physical and mental characteristics, which could mark a major advance in animal production. There are still some serious hurdles to be overcome but the field of possibilities is wide. The first advance recorded by the unit, directed by Professor H. John Evans, is that by using atabrine, a malarial drug, as a dye, a distinction can be made between male-determining and femaledetermining sperm. In the past, electrical, gravitational and chemical techniques have been tried – always without success.

When it is achieved, the farmer will ring up his artificial insemination centre and include in the order a specification of the sex of the semen. A breeder with a herd of Ayrshire cows would put female semen from the best bulls into his best milkers, using perhaps only one-third of his herd for this and would order (for example) Charolais male semen for the lowest milkers for the production of bull calves. By this means his income from sale of calves could perhaps be doubled.

Cover photo: “Springfield” the Otago Peninsula farm homestead where New Zealand’s first co-operative dairy company made cheese 100 years ago. Just left of centre is the kitchen wing where the tubs of whey were heated, and the stone building which served as the original “factory” is at the rear. Built in 1865 from local stone, the homestead is roofed with Welsh slates.

Brucellosis eradication is with us, although for most of us the initial test is still around the corner. Compensation payments have been announced for factory supply herds but a decision has yet to be made on compensation to be paid on town milk reactors. Because reactors must be slaughtered within a month of test, it is obvious that those whose herds are tested early in the season will suffer a greater production loss than those whose herds are tested later.