GREATER USE OF MILK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 47, 8 November 1946, Page 9 (Supplement)

GREATER USE OF MILK

FIGURES FOR UNITED KINGDOM

Consumption of liquid milk in the United Kingdom is this year 46 per cent, higher than the average consumption for the period 1936 to 1939. The potential demand is about 1,2000,000,000 gallons a year, which the United Kingdom authorities hope eventually to overtake through aiming at a production of 100,000,000 gallons of milk per month by December, 1947.

National and school milk schemes in the period 1936-39 accounted for only three per cent, of the total liquid sales. In 1944-,45 the percentage figure was 18. From 1936-39 to 1944-45 v the average consumption of milk per head daily over the whole population rose from .41 pints to .66 pints, as follows: 1936-39, 0.41 pints; 1939-40, 0.45; 1940-41, 0.56; 1941-42, 0.59; 1942-43, 0.61; 1943-44, 0.65; 1944-45, 0.66. These figures are based on restricted wartime sales. If sales had been unrestricted it is believed that the consumption figure in 1945 would have been 0.74 pints daily.

Production was obtained by an increase in the number of cows in milk, and not by any increased yield per cow. In 1942 the yield per cow fell by 15 per cent, as compared with the year before the war. The yield in 1945-46 was only 10 per cent, below pre-war level. The increased number of cows in milk was due to an increasing number of farmers milking dairy cows. In 1945 there were 20,450 additional producers selling milk. It is believed that 10 per cent, of the increased production was obtained from a greater number of milk producers operating, and only three per cent, from increased production on dairy farms formerly established as such.

Cress Taint in Cream

Cress Taint in cream can to a great extent be prevented by the controlled grazing of the herd, according to the latest quarterly circular forwarded to dairy factories by the New Zealand Dairy Research Institute, at Massey Agricultural College.

“The season of cress taint is with us again,” states the circular. While there is at present little new information to offer on this perplexing subject, a summary of the present knowledge may be of interest. We know:—

1. That a small quantity of cress consumed by one or two cows can at times taint a whole cream supply. 2. That cress may at times be eaten by the whole herd grazing on a bad-ly-infested pasture, without cress taint appearing in the cream. (Unfortunately we do not know the explanation of these apparently contradictory facts). 3. That cress taint in cream can be largely prevented by controlled grazing, i.e., by removing the cows from a cress-infested area not less Jihan three hours, and preferably at least four hours, before milking. This is a pallative, not a certain preventative. If possible, cress-in-fested areas should be grazed by dry stock, and milking cows should be grazed where cress is growing only if there is no other alternative.

4. That cows graze early in the evening and -do not graze much after midnight, until dawn. If cressinfested areas must be grazed by milking cows, they should be used for the night grazing. 5. That cress taint cannot with certainty be removed from cream by intense vacreator treatment. 6. Reports that cress-tainted cream can be treated-by low temperature pasteurisation require rigorous checking to ensure that the keeping quality of the butter is not endangered, before this system of handling cress-tainted. cream is adopted in practice for export butter.