Alaska's Dairy Industry: The Relationship Of History and Statistics

Abstract

The Alaska Crop and Livestock Reporting Service of the United States Department of Agriculture has provided an annual publication detailing the quantity and value of agricultural products in Alaska since 1960. Although the statistics are an excellent source of information, they do not provide a historical insight into events which might have effected rises and falls in product quantities and values. To quote: What statistics cannot always show us is why such trends have occurred (and) what factors have influenced their progress. These are a matter o f interpretation. (Weaver, Alaska Crop and Livestock Reporting Service 1987a). Indeed, one of the challenges of agricultural statistical interpretation is to reflect economic, political, and social events locally, nationally, and internationally.