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The Nature of the Dairy Enterprise

Department of Dairy Husbandry, University of Georgia, Athens

ABSTRACT

The past half-century has been the Golden Era of the dairy industry. Dairying is so big that the amount of money involved, the number of people who depend upon it for a living, and the extent of the service that it gives are hard to comprehend. Dairying has truly become a business giant that exerts a great influence upon the economic, nutritional, and political welfare of people all over the world.

The dairy industry of the United States sells more than five billion dollars worth of products annually (9). This involves more than 8,000 dairy plants, employing approximately 225,000 people, who are paid more than $300,000,000 annually in salaries (9). Dairy plants spend more than four billion dollars each year for milk, materials, fuel, electricity, equipment, and supplies (9). At least 6,500 equipment manufacturers and jobbers sell more than $450,000,000 worth of their products to the dairy industry each year (3). More than 200,000 trucks are needed to move milk from the farm to the plant and thence to the consumer (2).