The dairy industry in the United Kingdom to-day is of a size which few, even of those working in the industry, fully realize. In this industry one must include milk production on the farm, the handling, processing and distribution of liquid milk, the manufacture of milk products such as butter, cheese, dried and condensed milk, the manufacture and distribution of feeding stuffs for dairy stock, the manufacture of dairy equipment and machinery and other minor ancillary industries. Including the dependents of those actually engaged in milk production or utilization, approximately 5 % of the total population of this country is supported by the dairy industry. In monetary values, the present annual turn-over, in liquid milk alone, considerably exceeds £200 million. Measured in volume of liquid milk consumed per head of the population—a value more easily translatable into the coinage of national health— no less than 31 gal. of liquid milk per head were consumed on the average by every individual in this country during 1949. Ever since man first discovered—possibly in India or ancient Egypt—that the milk of other mammals was fairly readily procurable from some of them and was an excellent human food, the industry thus initiated has been full of every kind of problem, practical, scientific and economic. Yet despite the steadily growing consumption of liquid milk and the increasing manufacture of cheese and butter in the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century, surprisingly little planned experiment in relation either to milk production or to manufacture was carried out. True, shrewd individual cattle breeders and groups of breeders were endeavouring with considerable success to stabilize types of cow specialized for milk production ; in England the dairy Shorthorn and in Scotland the Ayrshire were the main results of these endeavours. Amongst the very few experimentalists who concerned them selves with dairy problems between 1890 and the establishment of the National Institute for Research in Dairying in 1912 were F. J. Lloyd in Somerset, who in the 1890’s investigated some of the scientific problems underlying cheese-making, Charles Crowther, who is still with us and a member of the Governing Board of the N. I. R. D. and who carried out experiments in Leeds from 1900 onwards on factors affecting yield and quality of milk and on milk proteins, Droop Richmond at Aylesbury and two or three other analysts interested in the control of milk supplies, and Thomas Orr, a medical bacteriologist, whose work on the causes of contamination of milk was of great value as a foundation for later studies. Otherwise, research on dairy problems, like research in Britain in most branches of agricultural science (apart from the work at Rothamsted on soils and fertilizers) was small in volume, severely lacking in facilities and meagrely supported financially. Our progress in agriculture, and particularly in dairying, was, in fact, almost abjectly dependent on findings made in countries abroad. These findings seeped through very slowly and many of them were inapplicable to conditions in Britain.
Production of milk and dairy products in Ukraine: trends and prospects
