抄録
Although there is evidence that a kind of milk product called “So” existed and was a tribute to the Emperor’s family, records of its production have disappeared over the centuries. It might be interpreted that the reason for its disappearance is that farmers in ancient Japan concentrated on rice farming rather than dairy farming as a national policy.
Modernization of dairy farming in Japan started after the Meiji revolution under consultation with a number of American technologists. Mr. Edwin Dun, born in Ohio in 1848, was the most prominent technologist due to his direction of the development of dairy farming in Hokkaido Island, which has been a major dairy area in Japan since the modernization began in the late decades of the 19th century.
A text of cheese manufacturing was written in 1877 by Mr. Kiji Sakoda, who was a young technologist working with Mr. Dun in a Nanae experimental farm established by the new government. A summary of the text is presented in this article since the record is supposed to be the first text for modern cheese manufacturing in Japan, which has been collected in the Nanae Historical Archive and unveiled by the author today.
The development process in Japanese dairy farming after this modernization was different from those countries where dairy farming is popular. After the consumption of fluid milk was accepted by Japanese people (drinking of cow’s milk was customarily prohibited until the time), processing of sweetened condensed milk which had been invented by Mr. Gail Borden and was already imported to Japan, was developed instead of butter or cheese manufacturing. The reason why this product was chosen was due to social hygienic level and the poor acceptability of cheese and/or butter by Japanese people.
The first industrial butter manufacturing in Japan was started in 1925 and for cheese in 1932. Therefore, Japan is still an under developed country as far as dairy farming is concerned. It will be forecasted what Japanese dairy farming and dairy product consumption will be in the next century.
