TITLE:
Sheep and Goat Production in Portugal: A Dynamic View
AUTHORS:
Manuel Luís Tiberio, Francisco Diniz
KEYWORDS:
Sheep and Goat Food Chain, Rural Development, Quality Products’ Certification
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.5 No.6,
June
18,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Sheep production is
probably one of the oldest productions in the world. In early years this animal
was considered as a domestic and productive one, since it provided families
with milk, meat and wool. Besides providing all these products, the animals
were not difficult to grow. They fed on many different floras that others would
leave so their owners started to walk great distances with them to get the best
grazing spots in winter and in summer. They called this transhumance. But in nowadays,
animal feed became easier to get to. It was no longer necessary to move all the
animals to pastures hundreds of kilometers away, and producers started going
for shorter distances. Production also got more intensive, although sheep
production was always considered to be more extensive rather than intensive.
With this revision we intend to go over all the statistics concerning this production
in Portugal and compare it in different years, to establish a correlation
between them. Although sheep production is made entirely with autochthonous
breeds and these are milk and meat production oriented, the meat production has
a higher relevance in the sector. So it was necessary to make a more thorough
approach to this production. There is also an interest in new and emergent ways
of production which we discuss at the end of this revision, along with a small
global analysis.