MILK FOR CHEESE MAKING

Southland Times, Issue 23181, 23 April 1937, Page 9

MILK FOR CHEESE MAKING

To The Editor Sir, —I am very pleased to see that at last we have a Minister of Agriculture who has “noticed that the amount of cheese made from each pound of butterfat received varies among cheese-manu-facturing companies from 2.451 b to 2.751 b, due to the varying butterfat content of the milk received.” The Minister states that “this wide range in cheese yield draws attention to the general question of the suitability of milk received by factories for cheese making.” For long years past my association has emphatically protested against the system of payment on a butterfat basis for milk for cheese making. Again and again we have brought before the Government and the Department of Agriculture the gross injustice inflicted on the suppliers of the lower testing milk by that system of payment. Mr P. O. Veale, 8.A., M.Sc., A.1.C., in his investigational work at Hawera in the 1926-27 season showed that the Friesian milk average test 3.55 per cent, produced 13.7 per cent, more cheese a pound of butterfat than did the Jersey milk average test 4.75 per cent. Mr Veale says: “Producers. of milk for cheese making are depriving themselves of Igd to 2d a pound butterfat by their present adherence to high-testing cows.” Dr McDowall in his bulletin, “Cheese Yielding Capacity of Milk,” issued in 1936, shows that milk testing 3.5 per cent, butterfat yields 2.7211 b cheese a pound butterfat, while milk testing 5 per cent, yields only 2.3411 b cheese a pound of butterfat, which means that the lower testing milk gives over 16 per cent, greater yield of cheese a pound of butterfat than does the higher testing milk. Yet under the present system all suppliers receive the same payment a pound of butterfat despite the wide, variations in the cheese yielding capacity of their milks. By reason of the inaction of the authorities during past years a crisis has developed in the position of the cheese industry of this Dominion. The butterfat percentage of milk used for cheese making has been gradually increasing year by year, and the yield of cheese a pound of butterfat has consequently been gradually, falling, until at the present time the yield is so low as to result in the manufacture .of cheese becoming commercially unprofitable. There is very grave danger of this Dominion losing its grip on the British cheese market, a market worth many millions of pounds yearly to New Zealand. The Minister of Agriculture states that “a company receiving 3.7 per cent, milk will pay its suppliers at least lid a pound of butterfat more than a factory receiving high-testing milk.” Yet the cheese companies are now asking for an increase in the differential price payable for cheese, as compared with butter, under the present guarantee price scheme. An increase in the differential price is no solution of this problem—at best it will only be a very temporary palliative. The true remedy lies in encouraging the use of suitable milk for cheese making i.e., milk with moderate fat content and a high casein-fat ratio, which gives a high yield of cheese a pound of butterfat. The one way and the just way is for the Minister of Agriculture to insist that payment for cheese milk shall be made on its actual value for cheese making. The system of payment recommended by the dairy scientists, Mr P. 0. Veale and Dr McDowall, based on the casein-fat ratio of the milk, should be made compulsory.—Yours, etc., J. P. KALAUGHER. Secretary, New Zealand Friesian Association. Auckland, April 19, 1937.