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Industrial Research—Production

Larro Research Farm, General Mills, Inc., Indianola, Iowa

ABSTRACT

In scanning back over developments of the past 50 years, it is apparent that dairy farming already had become of age by 1906. It had grown into a major business. In fact, the then Secretary of Agriculture was impressed sufficiently to praise our forefathers of that day for a farm output "so large as to be beyond any rational comprehension." Yet, today's farm production is virtually double that of a half century earlier. Approximately 18.1 million cows produced 63.7 billion pounds of milk on our nation's dairy farms in 1906. Over the ensuing half century, total milk production gradually increased until it reached the present annual estimate of 123.5 billion pounds. This 94% increase in milk output was accomplished by a diminishing number of farmers, and by only about a 34% build-up in population of milk cows—which today have an annual average of about 5500 lb. of milk per cow, or close to 50% more than the average in this country 50 years ago.