“Milky Gold” for the Empire: Dairy Cows, Cooperative Enterprise, and Settler Colonialism in Interwar Hokkaido

How and when did Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido become the nation’s largest dairy hub?

Raising over 60% of Japan’s dairy herd today, Hokkaido—Japan’s northern island—is widely known as the nation’s “dairyland.” State-led efforts to expand dairy farming on the island date back to the 1870s, when American agricultural experts employed by the Hokkaido Development Agency promoted dairying as a form of scientific agriculture suited to advancing settler colonialism. Despite this early intervention, the island only emerged as Japan’s largest dairy hub in the mid-1920s. This presentation explores why it took almost five decades for Hokkaido’s dairy industry to expand at scale. It centers on an island-wide dairy cooperative, examining how its leaders negotiated with government officials to foster and protect Hokkaido’s butter industry. By situating these efforts within transnational networks that linked Hokkaido to Denmark, New Zealand, and Russia, the presentation illuminates the political economy that underpinned the expansion of Hokkaido dairying.

This event is hosted by the History of Capitalism workshop, a Global Humanities Research Workshop co-sponsored by Stanford Global Studies and the Stanford Humanities Center. 

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