Economic Growth and Biological Innovation: The Development of the European Dairy Sector, 1865–1940

Abstract

Abstract:In this article we discuss an aspect of economic growth that has not been the subject of much consideration in economic and agrarian history to date: the effect of biological innovations on farming development between the mid nineteenth century and the 1930s. We have focused on dairy farming for two reasons. Firstly, dairy farming played a relevant economic role in a number of European regions during this period. Secondly, one of its products, liquid milk, was probably the most significant food during the early stages of the European nutrition transition. We present new statistical data for the evolution of dairy farming in different Northern European countries as well as Spain, and evaluate the impact of cattle population and milk yields in each case. We also link milk yields and the availability of fodder, but special attention is paid to the breeds kept and techniques for their improvement. The article shows that cattle improvement played a significant role in Central and Northern Europe from the mid nineteenth century, but that this was not the case in Spain. Improvement through inbreeding was soon discarded in Spain, absorbent crossbreeding failed, and the sector became dependent on foreign imports of bulls and cows, first from Switzerland and later from Holland. By taking these factors into consideration we can better understand why the dairy sector in Mediterranean Europe did not really begin until the late nineteenth century and why it stagnated in the wake of the First World War.

“The Child Needs Milk and Milk Needs a Market”

“…In 1935, for example, one liter of milk in the Yishuv sold for 13.5 mils, compared to 9 mils in Britain, 8 mils in Germany, 8 mils in the Netherlands, 5 mils in Denmark, and 4 mils in Australia (Shavit and Giladi 1981: 192). 7 As the Dairy Report shows, Jewish-produced milk was expensive in Palestine. This makes it an odd choice for a school program intended to promote nutrition on a national scale.…”

“…This was not unique to the Yishuv. Scholars have emphasized the tensions between the imagery of dairy farming as ''natural'' and the technical interventions required for industrialscale prosperity (DuPuis 2002;Adell and Pujol-Andreu 2016). Yet in the Yishuv, as Tamar Novick (2014) argues, there was no contradiction between romanticizing dairy and employing technologies to promote its production.…”