1. The Role of International Trade in the Rise of the New Zealand Dairy Industry from Its Beginnings to the Fonterra Era
- Author:
- Bruce Muirhead
- Publication Date:
- 08-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation
- Abstract:
- Since its widespread settlement by Europeans in the 1840s, New Zealand (NZ) has been an agricultural economy. As has been pointed out “there [has been] no serious challenge to the fundamental precept that the country's economy rested on an agricultural foundation” (Macdonald and Thomson 1987, 231), and dairy has been a significant focus of that base. Dairy production was introduced to New Zealand with the clear intent to establish New Zealand as an adjunct to the economic needs of Britain (Hawke 1985). Indeed, the closeness of the relationship between “the Britain of the south” and the metropolitan centre is one of the fundamental characteristics of any environmental history of NZ agriculture (Pawson 2008). This would persist in a material sense for more than a century, until the United Kingdom joined the European Community (EC) in 1973.
- Topic:
- Economics and Food
- Political Geography:
- Britain, United Kingdom, Europe, and New Zealand