Untitled Document

ic Fence

An innovation that
ted the pastoral technology was th
. This allowed a practice kno ame=”Anchor–An-25609″>break-grazing: the
ture in periods of slow p

Initi
chor-Initiall-24
ioneered in Wisconsin, the electric fencing con
ced to New Zealand by Professor Ri
ssey in 1938. The idea took off about 1950 when
ic fences boomed. From a cumbersom
oad of material taking hours to erect, the fenc
mplified so that it coul
y shifted and took only minutes to erect. Used
n electric fence
t the most efficient use of feed when it is in

A sophisticated home market and competition betwee
led to a highly succeelectric fencing export indus

Breeding for Milk Yield

er
wards increased production, im
in the cattle,
wed.
used for the cure of mastitis
e
breeding for milk yield was tackled. In 1942, breed societies representing the
s were well established and in Hamilton’s words ”fostered maintenance of a high standard of conformation in pedigree herds” but Hamilton clearly thought that the emphasis was wrong; too little testing was done, and too
tion pai

””

He suggested that lessons could
from the way the Danes had achieved a rapid improvement in production per cow, through th
ose female progeny had been shown to have higher than average fat

In fact the Dairy Board had taken on national herd improvement work in 1936 and a Herd Improvement Plan was adopted in 1939. In 1950 the Board started an artificial breeding service following experimental work at Ruakura by Dr J. James and, w
years, was inseminating over 80,000 cows. During the 1950s artificial insemination of da
dramatically from 1500 cows in 1949 to 500,000 in 1960. Through the use of selected bull
in the national herd of about 7% was achieved in the two decade

Scale Economies through Transport Advances

Transport considerations have played an important part in the development of the dair
It is well known how the advent of the home-separator about
lowed the extension of the factory system to newly developed areas where it would otherwi
cluded by poor roading. Hamilton remarked on the importance that motor transport had in making possible daily cream collection from outlying areas and in widening the radius of supply for cheese factories. He also noted the better social conditions it brought to farming communities and th
down of the barrier between town

Hamilton’s survey is in e
took some 160 pages in the NZ Journal of Science & Technology in 1942 and 1943. Because he tried to be comprehensive, the reader learns a lot about New Zealand society at the time and about the status of a range of technologies. His attempt to consider all influences led
e one notable gaffe. ”Air transport,” he wrote, ”… so far as one can see
ike
any direct influence on farmin
he associated meteorological services need
t air
u
griculture.&
, he did say at the beginning of the survey that it
nted with so
d a realisation of the pitfalls likely to await a

Mi

The New Zea
e Dairy –
ry’s biggest– pioneered in the early 195
from California: tanke
of whole milk from farms to the factory
uiring substantial investment in
steel tankers, this move required invest
: in holding tanks on a
deck and in a good access road with a solid cattle
or th
o turn around. The widespread adoption of this technology
;s
line in pig raising based on skim milk, allowing t
o milk production and contributing to the amalgamation of
endin
omic collection area. It also made Nowadays the reach o
y factories has been dramati
expa
the introduct

Fewer Far
Herd

At Bunnythorpe in 1904 an export-import firm, J. Nathan and Company, built the first factory in the world specifically designed for milk powder production.  A laboratory was established at Palmerston North for quality control purposes.  After World War I, further dried milk factories were built and the scientific facilities transferred to Hamilton.  With the opening of a London office to facilitiate dried milk export the manufacture of infant milk food expanded and with it the need to understand the importance of minerals in the formulations.  From this the company’s interest widened to the field of theraputic substances and vaccines.  The second World War increased the demand for medical supplies, penicillin production was started and Glaxo has become Britain’s largest pharmaceutical organisation, exporting widely and relying heavily on research to maintain its lead.

Scientific Support Institutions

While scientific support for on-farm developments in New Zealand has come principally from the Ruakura Agricultural Research station, Massey University, and from the Dairy Board itself, that for the processing side of the industry has come from an organisation specifically established for that purpose, the Dairy Research Institute.  This dates from 1927, being the first of the specialised research institutions, jointly supported by the Government and Industry, to be established following the visit to New Zealand of Sir Frank Heath, whose main recommendation had been the setting up of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.  The history of the Dairy Research Institute has been recounted by one of its former Directors, Dr W A McGillivray. 

The Institute has provided its most valuable direct assistance to the industry in the years of diversification since 1960 but this has been possible because of the foundation of scientific understanding of milk and milk processing built up since it was founded.  In the early years, problems related to the quality control of butter and cheese manufacture received attention, though the pressure of war caused work to be done on an alternative product, anhydrous milk fat as an alternative to butter. After the war, interest developed in the so-called by-products of the industry, casein, buttermilk powder, and skim milk powder, and in whole milk powder.

As they did in many sectors of the post-war economy, labour shortages proved a stimulus to change on the manufacturing side of the industry.  In 1948 the Dairy Board set up what would become the Dairy Factory Mechanisation Committee with the main purpose being to attract a better type of labour to cheesemaking: a labour intensive activity involving hard physical work.

Mechanised Cheesemaking

Initially attention was directed to devising means of mechanically stirring the curd and to the packing of cheese in crates.  Other improvements followed but the innovation which produced mechanisation sufficient to reduce the number of labour units rather than just the hard work, the Cheddarmaster System, arose out of a comprehensive programme started at the Institute in 1960.  It depended on the detailed understanding of the chemical and microbiological aspects of cheese making which had been built up at the institute over the years of its existence.

Except for the first steps in cheesemaking, coagulation and curdcutting, the Cheddarmaster makes the process a continuous one.

After trials at the Institute and at a Taranaki factory, the first commercial installations were made in 1966.  The care that had gone into the development work was rewarded by sales of items of the system to the United Kingdom, Eire, Canada and Australia. Internationally it is the most widely used system of mechanised cheesemaking.  Justification for its installation comes from its labour-saving capability which, as might be expected, is greatest in big factories.  Where over 450,000 litres of milk are processed per shift, fewer than 25 men can do what previously required over 100.

Cheddar Master

Continuous buttermaking does not appear to offer quite the economic advantages of cheesemaking and its adoption was slow in New Zealand at first; it is now widely in use, with imported European machines being among the largest used.

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REFERENCES

For the McMeekan story see: Gordon McLauchlan, "McMeekan – A Biography", Hodder And Stoughton, 1982.

P S Robertson, "The New Cheesemaking: From Art to Science" in “New Zealand is Different – Chemical Milestones in New Zealand History” Clerestory Press, 1999

W A McGillivray, "New Zealand Dairy Research Institute: A History of the First Fifty Years 1927 – 1977", NZ Dairy Research Institute , 1978.

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