Traditional Cheesemaking / An introduction

There are many remote areas scattered throughout the world where dairy farming is a well-established occupation. Large quantities of highgrade milk can be produced in such areas but the local market cannot always absorb them, especially during peak periods. Converting milk to cheese is one method of dealing with the surplus. Cheesemaking provides an incentive for improving dairying as well as creating new jobs. It also improves the local diet and raises the standard of living generally, through a better understanding of hygiene, scientific techniques and community spirit. Using traditional cheesemaking methods, this book gives an idea of the opportunities that cheesemaking offers as a source of rural employment, and of the problems that will be encountered by anyone planning to start such a business.

Now deceased, Josef Dubach was a Swiss cheese-maker and was sent by the Swiss Development Corporation to poorer countries to teach them the art of cheese-making. The aim was to help raise standards of living in the same way that cheese had done in the Swiss valleys.

Bill Hogan was taught cheese making skills by the late Josef Dubach in Costa Rica