Barbara Orland

Since the 19th century dairy manufacturing methods became standardized throughout Europe. Even before 1914, British cheddar cheese was produced in Argentina, Canada, or Denmark and sold in the cheese stronghold Switzerland. Similarly, the technique of producing Swiss cheese was employed in the Ukraine as well as the USA. With this consolidation of a new division of labor, products bought and sold in international trade were distinguished by labels for provenance which were supposed to guarantee quality by linking such products to a specific regional and historical context. As local rural experiences dissolved, tradition was invented.

Several seamless transitions from region to nation, from rural to national economy, from local to broad markets, from landscape to technology took place quite at the same time. But, how did cultural landscapes became part of national economic areas? Which effects had the integration into broad markets on local markets? How did farmers learn to produce for a national and widely competitive economy instead of working under the conditions of narrow markets? What was the impact of anonymus producer/consumer relations on the perception of food and food patterns?

In this project will be explored how the historical innovation of the nation and all its associated phenomena like nationalism, national symbols, national histories influenced the construction of the modern milk market. Three major innovations are particularly relevant for historical analysis. The first and most important was the substitution of site-bounded production methods by national agricultural territories with highly technological working conditions. Although the production of dairy goods, in the sense of butter and cheese making, has a long commercial tradition in Europe, cows, goats and sheep were employed for this purpose only under specific regional conditions. Making milk, butter, and cheese was part of the way people understood and were engaged with their local landscapes, both practically and symbolically. If this changed in the 19th century, then because of the transformation of a rural perception of the landscape to a nationwide agricultural territory. The idea of separating soil, landscape, and animal husbandry and assessing individually every part of what was formerly an organic farming unit was first challenged in what Paul Bairoch called the "organic phase" of agricultural modernization, beginning in the late 18th and lasting until the 1870s. In this period the traditional relationship between land, fodder, cattle, and dairy production had been torn apart.

Thus, the second major innovation was a substantial and sustained rise of interest in animal husbandry. Across Europe and without any regard for soil conditions or vegetation zones, agricultural regions which had been used for grain production were being converted to intensive dairy farming. Farmers in up to now grain-growing regions hoped to increase their incomes through cattle husbandry. One result of this tendency was the invention of national cattle. All important cattle races of today can be exactly dated in the decades since the 1860s. Another result was the promotion of national dairy husbandry all over Europe.

These major changes ended up in what I call the nationalization of milk markets - a development which did not only change the structure of milk consumption under the conditions of a soon crowded market, for instance the rise of a fresh milk market. The integration of the national agriculture into an emerging international trade, stimulated the technological progress within the new milk industries, motivated by the desire to make farm production and milk processing more efficient. The results of this intensification of dairy production quickly made themselves apparent in the trade field. The newly created nations of Europe competed with each other on the market of durable dairy products to an increasing degree. The extraordinary transport problems could be minimized with pasteurization technologies; new products like condensed milk or milk powder could be kept stable for a long time. With the exception of the fresh milk markets, the dairy industry like others could go for a business on large scale. Overproduction of dairy products became a major trend already at the turn of the 20th century and - as an irony of the story - especially the "old" dairy regions and countries like Switzerland struggled with constant overproduction and sales problems.

Eric Hobsbawm reminded us that the paradox of the nation as an economic unit in liberal capitalism is that it has no location. The national economy is no site-bounded economy; the basic modules are not places or regions but enterprises. However, enterprises normally do not follow national interests. For them the general rule is to make as much profit as possible. Therefore, markets are not limited and defined by national borders. Depending on the prevailing terms of the market firms will neglect national borders and operate worldwide. However, when regional dairy industries faced sales problems they found one important strategy to come out of the crisis by defining local qualities. It seemed obvious that the dairy industry needed to produce confidence by trademarks or garanties - and it found its symbols in local landscapes, animals and vegetation. While the internationalization of the milk market made it necessary to distinguish national products from each other, region, tradition and national symbols were transformed into arguments for marketing and advertising.

Publikationen

• Turbo-Cows: Producing a Competitive Animal in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century, in: Schrepfer, Susan R. und Philip Scranton (Hg.), Industrializing Organisms. Introducing Evolutionary History, New York/London: Routledge 2003, S. 167-189.
• Milchpropaganda vor und nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Konvergenzen zwischen Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Ernährungsreform, in: Technikgeschichte im Ruhrgebiet - Technikgeschichte für das Ruhrgebiet, hg. von Manfred Rasch und Dietmar Bleidick, Essen 2004, S. 909-933.
• Alpine Milk: Dairy Farming as a Pre-modern Strategy of Land Use, in: Environment and History (3/2004), S. 327-364.
• Wissenschaft, Markt und Erfahrung. "Natürliche" versus "künstliche" Säuglingsernährung im 19. Jahrhundert, in: Bos, Marguérite, Bettina Vincenz und Tanja Wirz (Hg.): Erfahrung: Alles nur Diskurs? Zur Verwendung des Erfahrungsbegriffes in der Geschlechtergeschichte, Zürich Chronos 2004, S. 291-305.
• Milky Ways. Dairy, Landscape and Nation Building until 1930, in: Carmen Sarasua und Peter Scholliers (Hg.): Land, Shops and Kitchens. Agriculture and Technology in historical Perspective, (Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area, vol 6), Turnhout 2005