UC Davis

California has a central role in U.S. and global dairy: it leads the U.S. in dairy production and milk is the state’s largest-revenue agricultural commodity. Changes in the structure and geography of dairy farming in California may be indicative of changes elsewhere. California’s position at the leading edge of the large-scale intensification of dairy production was achieved during a relatively short history. Over the last seventy years, government regulations, research and development, technical innovation, and changes in market demand have encouraged increased herd size, specialization, and mechanization of dairy production in many places around the world, perhaps nowhere more profoundly than California. The climate, topography, and agricultural productivity of the state has created an exceptional setting for rapid growth of the dairy industry, but has also resulted in substantial air and water pollution and many environmental and resource concerns including contentious politics around land and water use. This research examines the spatial change of dairy production in California over the past four decades. I use county agricultural reports and USDA Census of Agriculture data to demonstrate, through a series of original maps and animations, the dramatic increase in production of milk in California and especially in the San Joaquin Valley, the rapid fall in number of farms, and the concurrent spatial redistribution of production within the state. These visualizations reveal illustrative spatial patterns and insights into rapid changes in the geography of dairy production within California. Based on these visualizations and analyses, I propose a framework for understanding the intersecting transformations seen in California and other major dairy producing states: regional concentration, industry consolidation, and farm-level intensification. In explaining how these processes are nested, overlapping, and multi-scalar, I offer an account of California’s past and current trajectory, while examining the applicability and implications of these findings for other dairy-producing regions into the future.