Even before the United States entered the war in December 1941, the government was promoting increased milk production on America's dairy farms. The War Food Administration established rates of payment to dairy producers and encouraged new farming techniques. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) called milking machines "war tools" and claimed they saved 210 million hours of laber per year, important when young men were leaving farms for the armed services or for jobs in factories. Farm families were made to feel like the most important contributors in the war effort.

In 1941, when "Food for Defense" programs were initiated, there were 61,500 milk cows in Stearns County. The annual extension service report for 1941 stated: "The county has the cattle, the feed, the markets, and with good prices, everything is all set to go." Advertisements in the St. Cloud Daily Times called the dairy cow "Stearns County's Best Business Woman." Full-page ads were addressed to increased production, and the National Select Service told farm boys, "It is more important for you to stay on the farm and do a good job than to volunteer or be drafted into the armed services."

As young men left farms for the military or to work in towns and cities, younger children had to work at more difficult tasks on the farm. Women, too, were called on to contribute more. Meanwhile, farmers were fighting a war of their own. Although the USDA promoted the purchase of milking machines, the price of machinery and farm supplies, when available at all, went up. Tanks and airplanes were being built instead of milking machines and tractors. Farmers pieced together old machinery when they could not buy new.

New Milk Products

World War II prompted the manufacturing of dry powered milk for human consumption-ideal for troops overseas because it had one-tenth of the bulk of fluid milk, was cheaper, kept for months without refrigeration, and was germ-free because of the intense heat used in processing. In 1941 there were dry milk plants in Melrose, Albany, and Opole, and many creameries were shipping skim and buttermilk to other creameries that could produce powdered milk. By the end of World War II, ten of the top hundred milk-producing counties in the United States were in Minnesota. Stearns County ranked first in Minnesota, twenty-first in the nation.