REPORT OF THE 8^th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON GOATS

 

The 8th International conference on goats was held under the IGA’s auspices from July 3^rd to 7^th, 2004 in Pretoria (South Africa).

The specialists on goats from the 5 continents have gathered for exchanges and a state of art on the diversity of researches on goat production and on their conditions of development. For the first time, an African country hosted the meeting; an opportunity to develop more the problems of tropical areas, more represented than previously and 60 countries were represented. Only a part of short papers (80) presented as posters, have been published nowadays by the South African Journal of Animal Science. A second issue of this journal including the other short papers presented at Pretoria will be published in October or December. This partial publication of the Proceedings of the conference is analysed below. Although it is not complete, it gives a significant panorama of the researches and experiments on the goat all over the world. The invited papers will be reported subsequently when published.

 

Most of the communications from 22 countries are from Southern and developing countries. South African is logically well represented but also Mexico or Brazil, both countries beeing more and more involved in the goat production.

 

We have observed first a development at a worldwide level of the researches on goats. This reality is not observed everywhere, besides, in the analysis of scientific publications, some works not being published in International Scientific Journals. This globalisation is simultaneously joint to a regionalisation of experiments and research of adapted references, related with the local concerns.

 

Validated data on local forages

 

Goat Nutrition is still a priority subject. Several short papers have been dedicated to the knowledge of the composition and nutritive value of tropical forages for goats. Validated data have been obtained so, in South Africa (with Leucaena Leucephala, Atriplex Nummularia, Cenchrus Sativa, Cassia Strurti, Tripteris Sinuatum, Sutherlandia Microphylla, 3 forage scrubs of the tropical zones or Boscia satwa). In Mexico, valorisation of fibrous forages and use of degradated rangelands management of pasture have been studied to favour goat production systems with low imputs.

The improvement of rangelands in the Mediterranean area has been few developed during the conference except an Israelian communication on a method to estimate on the field the nutritive value of a diet on pasture with spectrometry in the near infra-red (NIRS).

Some studies have a very applied objective. Let us quote for instance, the analysis of ashes of village fires as a possible mineral source for goats in South Africa (The tropical forages being very often very deficient in minerals).

In Australia, the use of water with a high salt content for drinking would confirm that the goats could adapt better that other ruminants to salted water. But the long term effects of this high salt rate is still to estimate better. In South Africa, a study on the effect of water with a high toxic element content would have possible application on human populations; what also indicates the risk to affect goat products quality.

 

The improvement of supplementation of the goats’ diets has been the subject of some communications from various countries: the use of yeast to improve the rumen fermentations (from France). The use of urea and wheat straw to complete local diets in Mexico ; pasture management in the USA. Besides, these works have generally confirmed previous results.

 

More and more sophisticated methodologies

 

When more and more researches have been achieved on local data, they have meanwhile used sophisticated methodologies. Spectrometry in the near infra-red has been quoted yet to characterize the diets. The genetic characterisation of populations has been a way of research for a long time and has allowed to characterize the genetic polymorphism of goat proteins. Goat populations have been characterised thanks to their polymorphism in Hungary by analyzing the allele’s frequencies of alpha S1 Casein and Beta lacto-globulin according to the breeds. More recently, the use of microsatelites markers has been developed to characterize the white goat from Andalusia in Spain.

 The characterisation of cheese flavour has mobilized techniques like microextraction in solid phase, spectrometry gas chromatography with a more and more fine analysis of fatty acids. Genetic tests have also been used in Australia or in South Africa in genetic improvement centres to evaluate the quality of fibre. Video and optical analysis have been used to measure the diameter of cashmere fibres. Communications on the physiological aspects seem to have been less numerous than during previous Conferences. There are still a lot on the physiology of nutrition as for instance the models of purine bases in duodenum in France. The use of goats as animal model for studying the physiology of ruminants is also less usual. It is the general trend of research in animal production since each species of ruminant has its own physiological characteristics.

 

Research to improve quality of meat has developed and to characterize goat cheeses and milk.

 

The goat meat becomes a priority subject since before research on this subject was very poor. Rather numerous trials in goat nutrition have improved the knowledge of dietary requirements according to the type of carcasses demanded by consumers (profile of amino acids and level of ingestion and metabolisable energy in the USA); a very interesting research has shown few effects of Tasco, on the stress of goats during slaughtering. The texture of goat meats supplemented with Tasco has been also compared favourably with the meat of other species. The role of genetic selection has a high importance on the improvement of the fineness of Mohair and Cashmere, and sophisticated technologies must be applied to measure this fineness.

 

Qualitative criteria of cashmere have been defined in Australia and the ones of skins and fleeces in Italy.

Less innovation could be observed on goat milk and cheeses, probably due to the fact that Conference has been located in a country where this production is not much developed.

We can quote the results of French works on the use of whey concentrate rich in protein to improve the texture of cheese pastes made with goat milk. Furthermore, a long storage of milk at 4° C can decrease the stability of heat treated milks.

In Italy, the researches have mainly the objective to characterise and differentiate the sensorial, gustative or dietetic properties of milks and cheeses according to the breed of animals (Maltese or Nelrodi breed in Sicily), diet of goats (profile in terpens according the nature of pasture).

Rather numerous research works, from southern countries have validated results already known in other places: Elimination of antibiotics in goat milk in South Africa, physical, chemical, technological and nutritional characteristics of goat milk in Egypt according to the breed; factors influencing the composition of goat milk and cellular cell count in Southern Brazil.

 

Reproduction and selection: deepening of knowledge

 

The characterization of the breeds before initiating selection schemes is rather frequent: mountain goats in Serbia and Montenegro; evaluation of Boer and Kiko lines in subtropical conditions in the USA; evaluation and genetic profile of Angora goats in Australia, and Kalahari Red in South Africa, or white goat of Andalusia; the genetic variability of six goat indigenous and commercial populations in South Africa.

 

In Canada, an early selection of 3 years old goats has been tested to be applied when the number of animals recorded is low, what occurs often in goat selection.

 

The control of reproduction by light treatment or by hormonal treatment, the ovarian activity of goats in Tropical areas in Brazil or in Mexico, the seasonal variation of the semen quality of the bucks in South Africa, have still been studied. But the following tendency can be observed: the use of hormonal treatments to control reproduction is decreasing. This control must be realized with other methods.

The dairy potentialities of crossings of Angora goats have been studied in Germany to consider a production with several purposes.

 

A priority: to control internal and external parasitism on goats

 

Pathology and veterinarian medicine have not been much developed during the Conference. The CAEV problem is still studied in Europe with for instance an Hungarian paper and the negative effect of seropositivity on the performances of Hungarian goats has been emphasized.

 

Several and often original studies have been presented on the control of parasitism. In Italy, where the effects of several anthelmintics against gastrointestinal nematodes would be logically related with the period of treatment; natural treatments (anthelmintics properties of a diet including Sericea lespedeza hay in the USA); acaricid effect of an essential oil in Cameroon; utilization of decoquinate to control the parasitism of protozoa in France.

 

A very original Indian study has analysed the scientific pertinence of traditional practises in Rajasthan. 85 practices have been inventoried to cure 18 diseases: 11 of them are contradictory, 27 % partly relevant, 51 % completely relevant and only 13 % are considered absolutely non relevant. The authors have recommended the development of these ethno-veterinarian methods while practising previous tests.

 

 

 

A survey and considerations on the development of goats in several regions in the world

 

If the subjects of the compiled short papers are analyzed, the research on subjects already dealt with and validated in other places with well know protocols have been relatively less frequent than in the previous Conferences. The subjects have been rather been oriented towards local objectives although the goat sectors are often very small considered and the capacity to transfer the results very low considering the lack of extension Services (see Tintenna n° 23).

The prospects for the development of goat farming in several countries have been submitted:

 

-          The goat herd in Pakistan has 51 millions heads from 25 breeds, with 5 millions goat holders, mainly in marginal areas.The official statistics have considered a production of 607 millions non marketed and auto-consumed litres of milk, mainly in pastoral areas where nomadism is always very frequent. The conditions to valorise and to commercialize the milk have not been analysed and the dairy potentialities of the Pakistan breeds are focused (from 113 to 272 l/lactation in 4 to 5 months)

-          In Zimbabwe, a project to improve the standards of living and resources of poor rural populations has been based on loaned animals. 4000 goats have been set up in 800 families. The participative methods of development have been promoted without considerations on the possible difficulties of organisation of such an approach.

-          In Brazil, the dairy production has been associated to the production of kids with a greater interest in all the country. The milk composition has been studied in the North East and a pilot study aims a better knowledge of the market thanks to an inquiry in bakeries, 13 % of them sell a goat product, the coalhado.

-          In Bolivia, the winning cards of the Creole goats in production systems diversified in meat and goat of the Andean valleys and the role of women have been analysed.

-          In the Southern Mozambique, small herds of about ten goats are typical of small towns and villages near the capital city Maputo.

 

The authors of the study have shown as for instance, in South Africa for the small holders systems, the main effect of bad sanitary conditions and precarious housing of animals on the mortality and performances of the herds.

 

To satisfy a high demand in milk and especially in meat in the Caribbean Islands, Trinidad Island has tried to develop more intensive goat systems with animals with a high genetical potential. Saanen and Anglonubian goats whose performances seem to be more adapted to the needs of regulation in the tropical zone.

 

The goat dairy sectors have been few developed in Sub-Saharian Africa. In Senegal a German project has been lead in the Niayes Region. The system, that would allow a higher valorisation of goat milk than cow milk, is based on the hypothesis of marketed cheeses in the hotels and supermarkets of the region, a very touristic area.

But we can wonder if the level of milk contamination and the low potential of growth of the market would not be a strong limiting factor to develop goat milk production in a country where the consumption is traditionally low.

 

In spite of the dynamism and the diversity of the goat projects presented during the Conference, we feel how difficult it is to set up sustainable goat sectors with a high economic impact.

 

In Pretoria, reliable information on some projects on goat development allows to estimate that they obtain positive results for goat farmers, even if sometimes criticisms can be made. Even we have to be prudent on this field, we can suppose that after 20 or 30 years where goat projects frequently obtain disappointing results, probably nowadays the know-how to do in goat farming begins to progress with a delay in comparison with other domestic animal species.

 

Traduction by Martine Duspiwa