DAIRY RESEARCH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21529, 29 December 1931, Page 9

DAIRY RESEARCH

MARKETING BOARD’S REPORT (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 18. The latest publication issued by the Empire Marketing Board is a treatise on Dairy Research (H.M. Stationery Office and branches, Is). This has been compiled by Sir William Dampier, F.R.S. (formerly Dampier Whetham), Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, scientist, economist and author. ■ln a letter from the Empire Marketing Board Sir William Dampier was asked the following questions: — 1. What is dairy research? i.e., .what is the proper line of division between a specialist dairy research institute and the work of other research institutions in the sphere of nutrition, animal diseases, and low temperature research? 2. What is being done in this field in England, Scotland, and elsewhere? 3. What extensions are contemplated or desirable, and what are the most important scientific or problems to which attention should be directed? To each of these questions he devotes a chapter. In the first chapter the writer deals with methods of research which should obviate the greatest amount of overlapping. In the second chapter he sets out the work recently completed or now being done in dairy research at the West of Scotland Agricultural College, at the Cambridge School of Agriculture, at the Rowett Institute, at the Welsh and Scottish Plant Breeding Stations, at Eothamsted, Reading, and Shinfield. VALUE OF MILK AND MILK POWDER.. Dealing with milk as a food, the writer says: The dietetic value of milk is very great. Not only is it the cheapest source of high-grade proteins, but, when fed with other foods in right proportions, it has a specific influence beyond its calorimetric value, especially on growing children and young animals. This latter effect has been demonstrated for pigs, calves, and poultry. Children into whose diet a pint of raw or pasteurised milk a day has been inserted in place of some calorimetric equivalent, grow both in height and weight much faster than those without it. This lias been shown by the careful work of Corry Mann on boys in a Home Colony near London. On a basic ration, adequate calorimetrically, the average yearly growth in weight was 3.851 b, and in height 1.84 inches. Boys receiving also a pint of pasteurised milk a day put.on C.981b, and grew by 2.C3 inches. The effect of additional food of other kinds was much less. Similar results were shown by the experiments of Orr on Scottish school children. Separated milk seemed to have as great an effect as whole milk in {stimulating growth, though of course its food value is less. Another experiment, made in Scotland during 1030, again showed the value both raw and of pasteurised milk. The consumption of condensed and dried milk is going up fast, partly owing to its convenience, partly owing to its relative cheapness, and partly Giving to the idea that it is safe from infection of disease. But experiments have shown that tubercle bacilli may survive condensing or drying, though in less virulent form. Again, Muggia has shown that streptococcus pyogenes can remain alive and virulent in commercial milk powder for five months. The nutritive value of dried milk has been examined in America, especially by Sharman and Campbell, who found that a mixed diet of ground wheat and whole milk powder kept rats thriving for many generations. Skim milk powder was definitely less effective. PASTEURISED MILK. Work at the Rowett Institute has shown that pasteurising causes physical and chemical changes in milk, which made calves fed on pasteurised milk to thrive less well than those fed on raw milk. Less calcium, phosphorus, and nitrogen are absorbed when heated milk is used, the calcium being rendered less soluble. Experiments on rats are also being carried out at Rats fed on sterilised milk —that is, milk heated fOr some time to lOOdeg C make little growth, soon age and rease to breed. With pasteurised milk, while the docs do well, the bucl<* make much slower progress. This '(kperiment is

in its early stages, but promises interesting results. Little, if anything, has been done to examine the special nutritive value for children of dried and condensed milk as compared with raw milk. OVER-PRODUCTION. In the third section of the volume the writer considers what extensions in research are contemplated, or desirable. In this connection he says:— Our rapidly growing knowledge of the underlying sciences, and of the practical methods best adapted to secure their application to dairying, should have a beenfieia! effect on the milk industry. It will certainly increase the yield of milk and diminish the costs of production, but its influence on profits involves elements of doubt. It will increase profits only if demand grows at least as fast as supply and a growing demand will depend on an improvement in marketing and in the organisation of propaganda. Unless demand can be stimulated as prices are lowered, the effect of imprpveraent in the theory and practice of dairying may be to increase the over-produc-tion from which the industry is already suffering at present prices. Hence, to preserve the necessary balance, the Empire Marketing Board should bear in mind the desirability of helping marketing. SUGGESTED LINES OF RESEARCH. Sir William Dampier summarises the directions in which he thinks immediate progress in dairy research may be expected and should be supported by public funds. ]. The improvement of pastures by work on plant genetics, on frequent cutting and intensive grazing, and on the cultivation of grass land; also (for its indirect action in preventing over-production of milk) the development of new methods of arable farming. 2. The effect of variation in cattle food, especially of dried young grass, on milk, and the effect of variation in the composition of milk on its products. 3. The inheritance of high milkyielding characters, information being sought both from existing records and by carrying out new investigations. 4. The psychology of milk secretion. 5. The inoculation of cattle against tuberculosis. 1 0. Investigations on the variation i n the composition» of milk, in the first place by a search of the literature by a physiologist and a statistician, leading perhaps to further largescale experiments. 7. Carefully-planned and efficiently controlled experiments on the nutritive value of milk in various forms and of its products and by-prodUcts, to extend present work and to clear up discrepancies. 8. The survival of pathogenic organisms when milk is condensed and dried. 9. The study of the process of ripening of dairy products and the effect of storage in controlled conditions of temperature and humidity. 10. The more intensive ‘study of the economics of the dairy industry; (a) an account of the history of the milk trade during the slump in the autumn of 1930; (b) a survey of the present quality of “ ordinary ” milk, and periodical surveys in future; (c) increased propaganda for the consumption of more milk; (d) a study of the economic possibilities of increased trade in cream and veal, and, if the result is favourable, a campaign to make it known; (e) an inquiry into the possibility of payment for milk by quality—cleanliness and contents of solids. A beginning lias already been made in co-operation between the National Institute at Shinfield and that in New Zealand, and it is essential that close touch should be maintained with all overseas work.