The impact of dairying on lowland Taranaki, 1880-1920

Abstract

For nearly eighty years dairying has been a major factor in New Zealand's economic growth and prosperity. In 1959 a wide range of dairy products alone provided 25% of our export trade. Dairy farming in New Zealand has evolved into a very specialized and highly efficient farming system, this specialisation being reflected in its regional concentrations. During those eighty years the history of lowland Taranaki has been devoted almost exclusively to the establishing, developing and perfecting of this particular farming type. But its present economic significance, both regional and national, is not its only claim to distinction. It is the intention of this thesis to show how the dairy industry, with its astute and determined founders, its peculiar set of institutions, and its growing economic importance has, with the aid of advancing twentieth century technology and a suitable physical habitat, completely transformed the face of the land. At the same time it will be shown how the young and rough pioneering community which first set about clearing the bush evolved, within the short space Of forty years, into a mature and fully developed agricultural community dependent on one specialized activity, dairying. In a new colony where a subsistence livelihood is the first requisite, it was the individual settler in his rural setting, rather than the urban dweller, who was the prime factor in development. Therefore it is the farmer and his way of life which must take pride of place in a study of this kind and it can truthfully be said that, even today, the towns of Taranaki and their inhabitants exist primarily to serve the needs of the dairy farmer, and are dependent largely on his prosperity.