Drink More Milk, 1948

The following article was published in the Waynesville Mountaineer, May 18, 1948

A condition that cannot be driven home to North Carolina too frequently is the poor showing which Tarheelia makes in milk production and consumption.

While this deficiency, affecting both our economy and our health, has been stressed many times, it was the reiteration by Frank H. Jeter, State College agriculture editor, before a Raleigh civic club which currently caught our attention. Mr. Jeter, after noting that only 30 percent of North Carolina farm land is used in production of its great cash crops of tobacco, cotton and peanuts, urged that the remaining 70 percent go into production of other commodities and crops which are needed to balance our agricultural program.

It was in this connection that Mr. Jeter urged the development of a livestock industry, which of course ramified out into cattle raising, feed production and dairying. As for this third field the figures show that 20 percent of the milk which North Carolinians are now drinking has to be brought in from other states and that average consumption in the Old North State is only half the national average. Here we have a pyramided deficiency which must show the possibilities for dairying development in our midst. The average North Carolina consumes less than half the milk the average American consumes and yet, with this under-consumption, 20 percent of what he consumes has to be imported.

--Greensboro News