One of the outstanding features of the New Zealand dairy industry has been its organisation for recording and improving dairy cattle by breeding. Recording of milk and butterfat yields began in 1909 in a small way; a cooperative recording scheme began in 1922, and in 1926 the cooperative scheme, which developed into the present herd-recording system, began operations. This was taken over in 1926 by the Herd Improvement Council, a subsidiary of the industry's own governing body, the Dairy Board. The herd recording in local areas is run by committees of dairy farmers who employ office staff and herd testers. The central organisation, under the Herd Recording Council, provides a most useful service by collecting information from dairy herds about yields and about other matters (such as disease incidence) and passes the information and useful conclusions obtained from its examination back to the dairy farmers. This type of service has acted as a model for at least one much older dairying country.

By 1940 it seemed that the grade cattle in ordinary commercial herds were genetically of much the same standard as the cattle in the purebred (pedigree) herds because bulls from the latter were, on the average, no longer causing increased production in grade herds. For this reason an artificial breeding scheme, using superior breeding sires selected on the basis of the butterfat production of their daughters in herds throughout the industry, was started in 1950 with a group of 2,400 cows. The scheme grew rapidly until, in the spring of 1960, 466,000 cows were mated by artificial means. A high standard of bulls has been maintained, despite the difficulties of providing a service for the very restricted mating season for most New Zealand cows and the increasing numbers of cows in the scheme each year. The “proven” bulls used leave daughters yielding per lactation, on the average, almost 30 lb of butterfat more than the daughters of average bulls used in the industry. Because some of the bulls used have to be young “unproven” bulls, the best of which will replace the older proven bulls, the daughters left by all the bulls in the scheme do not do as well as this, but they average per lactation over 20 lb of butterfat more than the daughters of average bulls. The artificial breeding scheme is administered locally by farmer committees who deal with herd recording, and nationally by the Artificial Breeding Department of the Dairy Board.

Before 1961 the Dairy Board, whose members were elected by farmers, controlled herd recording and artificial breeding schemes, collected, analysed, and disseminated information, provided an extension service for dairy farmers, acted as the consulting and bargaining authority for the industry, and directed and guided development and changes in the pattern of industrial production. In 1961 it became responsible for marketing as well, and had added to its membership a small minority of Government nominees.

The New Zealand Dairy Industry is distinguished by the important role which farmer cooperative organisations have assumed. Not only do farmers elect most of the members of the Dairy Board and run local herd recording and artificial breeding; they also own and administer almost all the dairy factories in the country. As well as processing dairy produce, factory organisations often act as merchants, supplying farmer-members of the cooperative with farming and household goods at a discount.

by Donald Souter Flux, M.AGR.SC.(N.Z.), PH.D. (READING), Senior Lecturer in Dairy Husbandry, Massey University of Manawatu.

• Annual Reports and Statement of Accounts, New Zealand Dairy Board (1924–61). Bulletin 89, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (1944). “The Dairy Industry in New Zealand”, Hamilton, W. M.