A flock of many colours

While ARSIAL (The Lazio Regional Agency for Development and Innovation in Agriculture) criteria for goat conservation are based on fixed and pre-defined benchmarks to achieve ‘breeds’ purity’, pastoralists prefer —instead— to maintain high genetic variability amongst their goats to avoid consanguinity, while ensuring stable milk yields and fostering goats’ resilience within forage-poor rangelands.  Indeed, pastoralists are well aware that the elimination of specific phenotypes (e.g. coat colours) could —in the future— reduce herds’ ability to renew themselves and regain new balances, especially when the risks associated with consanguinity are real. Surely, in the years ahead, the success of extensive and semi-extensive livestock systems (associated with goats and other species) will not be achieved through «breeds’ purity», rather it will largely depend on the resilience and adaptability of livestock to environmental transformations.