Dairy Farming In The Nineteenth Century

In the early nineteenth century, traditional dairy farms in the northern United States and southern Canada, usually mixed livestock agriculture and grain cultivation as well. Women usually made milk of one or a few cows into several hundred pounds of better, and less often made cheese for household use, selling or trading between local merchants (McMurry, 1995) Dairy products were for subsistence first and market commodities second. Between the 1840’s and 1880’s farmers on medium size to large farmers began specializing just on dairying (Gibb, Bernstein & Zipp, 2009). Drastic changes on dairy farms became evident as new innovations in farm architecture and equipment became available and new breed of cattle were developed. Farmers began taking pride in their cows, some even entering their cattle into state and county fair …show more content…
Recent studies have shown that consumption of butter in the twenty first century has seen an upward trend. Cindy Sorensen, VP for business development for the Midwest Dairy Association attributed this trend as "consumers desire for fresh, real and natural products that are less processed” (Weisenberger, 2014). Kimberly Egan, the CEO of CCD Innovation, a California food and beverage product development company, believes that the consumer’s desire to buy locally factors into their buying habits. She believes that “the local food movement and the desire to know foods ' point of origination are also playing roles in butter 's rediscovered popularity” (Weisenberger, 2014). The recent changes in consumer toward butter are also reflected in sale. According to the Dairy Farmers of America, butter consumption is at its peak in the last 40 years. In 1997 Americans consumed 4.1 pounds of butter and in 2012 that amount increased to 5.6 pounds per capita. In 2013, volume sales were 5.3% higher than the previous year, and dollar sales were up by 5.9% (Weisenberger,