DEVELOPMENTS IN DAIRY HERDS

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1930, Page 7

DEVELOPMENTS IN DAIRY HERDS

EFFECT UPON CHEESE-MAKING

WAIKATO CHEMIST’S VEIW.

A very reasonable statement of the causes which have brought about the manufacture of standardised cheese has been given by Mr W. H. Udy, chief chemist to the Hamilton Research Laboratory. The two movements in the evolution of the daily industry which were having an important bearing upon cheese-making were the rapid development of herd testing and the development of more intensive methods of feeding the dairy cow, which had brought about high-producing herds with higher average tests. A survey of the average fat tests at different cheese factories, particularly in the Auckland Province, showed that there had been a substantial increase year after year. Those engaged in the dairy industry had been aware of this development, and in the 1928-29 season it became generally recognised that something should be done. The steadily increasing fat content of cheese was resulting in a direct monetary loss in that producers were selling extra fat at cheese prices, while this extra fat was a very doubtful advantage as far as improvement in the quality of the product was concerned,

ADOPTION OF STANDARDISATION

In deciding what course should he pursued to ovei’come this difficulty of excess of fat in cheese, there were differences of opinion. Two courses presented themselves. One was to force the producers to milk low testing herds for cheese-making or to standardise the fat content of hightesting milk at the factory. The latter course was deemed advisable, and, in January, 1929, standardisation came into practice. Standardisation did not prevent the development of the low-test herd in those districts where it was suited, but, on the other hand, it enabled the continuance of the movement towards the more economical production of cheese solids with high-testing cows. While this latter development was very little in evidence in the South Island, in the North Island and particularly in the Auckland province, because of the favourable climatic conditions, it was very much in evidence. Standards of 50 per cent and 52 per cent of fat in the dry matter were set as the minimum for standardised cheese, and in these figures, standards had been set which were from 5 per cent to i per cent higher than the minimum demanded in Great Britain Tor full cream cheese. Therefore the industry was working on sound quality lines.

QUALITY DECLINING IN PAST

DECADE,

Mr Udy said that, unfortunately for the industry during the past decade the quality of New Zealand cheese as a whole had been declining. This had been the case with full cream cheese as well as standardised cheese, and was very much in evidence before ever standardisation came into practice. That in some instances standardised cheese of low quality had been made was not disputed hut it was a fact that some factories were regularly producing a standardised cheese of better quality than the average full cream cheese. In all the investigation that had been carried out by dairy scientists, Dairy Division officials and others, it had .been evident that the causes of the main trouble in cheese quality was something other than standardisation. PAYMENT FOR MILK. The latter part of Mr Udv’s statement is perhaps the most important, in which he points out that the quality of New Zealand cheese as a whole had been declining during the last ten years. He contends that there is something other than standardisation which i *is the cause of it, and no doubt he is right. In Otago and Southland, where high-testing herds form only a comparatively small percentage of the dairy cows, the quality of the cheese produced is being well maintained. There is no doubt that the lowertesting milk is much better for cheesemaking than high-testing milk that has been part skimmed. To the mind of the writer, the great mistake has been paying for milk at cheese factories on a flat rate for butter-fat, and he pointed out many years ago that, unless the system was altered, tlie high-testing herds would he develooed and the low-testing herds would gradually decrease, as they have done. Tn Canada this was foreseen, and a system was adopted and, so far as the writer is aware, is still in vogue of making the payment for milk at cheese factories more equable.