Agitu Ideo Gudeta, who was killed on Wednesday, used abandoned land to start a goat farming project employing migrants and refugees. To learn more about her life visit the links below. iga-goatworld.com
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Lenin Aguirre-Riofrio, Teddy Maza-Tandazo, Manuel Quezada-Padilla, Oscar Albito-Balcazar, Alex Flores-Gonzalez, Osvaldo Camacho-Enriquez, Amparo Martinez-Martinez, BioGoat Consortium, and Juan Vicente Delgado-Bermejo
Simple Summary An individual from a population presents a series of characteristics that differ from the rest and that increase as the kinship relationships are lower; this leads to the fact that two populations that stop exchanging genetic material through mating eventually come to present characters common to all members of each, but different between the two. This was what happened with the animal populations brought to America more than 500 years ago from the Iberian Peninsula in the colonization period, resulting in Creole populations that inhabit the harshest environments of our immense geography. The Creole goat “Chusca Lojana” has adapted to live in the dry forest region of Southern Ecuador, where environmental conditions are warm-dry, with sparse vegetation and a rather irregular topography. In the present study, the intra-breed genetic diversity of this goat is analyzed as well as its genetic relationships with other breeds. Significant FIS and intra-breed structure show that there is some heterogeneity and structure within the breed. However, inter-breed structure results underline that this breed is differentiated from other Creole breeds, because crossbreeding with other breeds was not detected; therefore, we must take advantage of this valuable genetic resource, and ensure its conservation and selection. Abstract The largest population of goats (62%) in Ecuador is in the dry forest region in the south of the country. A Creole goat, named “Chusca Lojana”, has adapted to the dry forest region where environmental conditions are warm-dry, with sparse vegetation. Knowledge of the genetic information of the Creole goat is important to determine intra-racial diversity, the degree of genetic distance among other breeds of goats, and the possible substructure of the population, which is valuable for the conservation of such a species’ genetic resources. A total of 145 samples of the Creole goat was taken from the four biotypes previously identified. Genetic analyses were performed using 38 microsatellites recommended for studies of goat genetic diversity (FAO-ISAG). The results of within-breed genetic diversity showed a mean number of alleles per locus (MNA) of 8, an effective number of alleles (Ae) of 4.3, an expected heterozygosity (He) of 0.71, an observed heterozygosity (Ho) of 0.63, polymorphic information content (PIC) of 0.67, and an FIS value of 0.11. Between-breed genetic diversity among 43 goat populations (native of Spain, American Creole, Europeans, and Africans) showed the following values: FIS = 0.087, FIT = 0.176, and FST = 0.098. Regarding the analysis of the population structure, the results showed that the Creole Chusca Lojana goat population is homogeneous and no genetic separation was observed between the different biotypes (FST = 0.0073). In conclusion, the Chusca Lojana goat has a high genetic diversity, without exhibiting a genetic substructure. Therefore, it should be considered as a distinct population because crossbreeding with other breeds was not detected. Keywords: Capra hircus, biodiversity, genetic resources, conservation, microsatellites markers Dear colleagues,
We would like to inform you that the 10th International Sheep Veterinary Congress (ISVC) that was scheduled to be held in 2022 from September 19th to 23rd, in Seville, together with the 5th Congress of the ECSRHM, will be delayed six months, to March 6 to 10, 2023. As it is known, the ISVC is being organized by the Spanish Society for Sheep and Goat Production (SEOC). The organizing committee has been working hard for several years in order to perform a successful conference at the organizational, content (scientific, cultural and recreational aspects) and attendance (delegates and speakers) levels. The reason that has led us to make this decision has been the postponement of the 31st World Buiatrics Congress (WBC) 2021-MADRID, to September 4-8, 2022. The situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the organizers (the Spanish Society ANEMBE) to postpone the conference to September 2022. As we said before, we would like to have a successful ISVC congress, and as you know, although the WBC is a congress eminently dedicated to cattle, it also has a section dedicated to small ruminants. The WBC is an event with which we share delegates, speakers and members of the Scientific Committee, so it is likely that by holding both events at such close dates, many potential participants, would be forced to choose between the two congresses, negatively affecting both the number of attendees (delegates) and the quality (speakers). We also share sponsor companies and institutions, so holding both congresses in the same year and in the same country, would negatively affect their financial support to our congress. For these reasons, after taking into account the opinions of the members of the Organizing and Scientific Committees of the ISVC-Seville, and obtaining the ISVA and ECSRHM approvals, we considered postponing it to March 2023 to be the best option. If this postponement could cause inconvenience to any delegate, we sincerely apologize on behalf of all the organizers. We also want to communicate, that we have decided, together with the ISVA, to organize a virtual meeting from 23rd to 25th November 2021 of which we will inform you soon. Looking forward to meeting all you in March 2023 in Seville!! Yours sincerely, Jesse Barandika & María J. Alcalde Presidents of the Organizing Committee ISVC 2023 website: https://isvc2022.com/ Small ruminants (goats and sheep) are kept for multiple purposes and provide a modest, but increasing, contribution to national production of red meat and milk. Most products are consumed by the household or traded through informal markets. Industry snapshot:
Small ruminant production systems Pastoralism with larger herds
Smallholder herds
Smallholder intensive
The end of any year is a good time for reflection and assessment, but this has been a year like no other. We have all been touched by the COVID-19 pandemic, and many of us have lost family, friends, and colleagues. As more people worked from home and faced recurring travel restrictions, IGA members, and Board endeavored to provide more online content and opportunities. The feedback so far has been enthusiastic, with requests for more content in more languages, and we agree! Check the website or social media for updates. And please share any new content from your institution or country! Thank you.
The International Goat Association typically holds the International Goat Conference every four years, but COVID required that we postpone it. The new dates are October 3-8, 2021, and it will still be in Eger, Hungary, but check the IGA website for updates. Here is the ICG Conference website: www.icg2020.org. The IGA Board of Directors held two virtual meetings this year, on March 24 and October 2, plus a Strategic Planning meeting on December 7. I give special thanks to all of the Board members who have agreed to extend their terms an additional year due to COVID and who also participated in our online and Zoom discussions with great enthusiasm and insight. The new IGA Strategic Plan will be posted on the website once finalized, and it will guide us through the changing world we will find in 2021 and onwards. I want to commend the Strategic Planning Committee, chaired by Davinia Sánchez, and committee members Jean-Marie Luginbuhl, Dilip Bhandari, and Paula Menzies for guiding this crucial process for IGA to increase activity, visibility, and impact. Thermostable Peste des Petits Ruminants Vaccine Commercially Available for the First Time12/28/2020 For millions of smallholder farmers around the world, small ruminants – sheep and goats – provide a vital source of food, income and security. Threatening this, however, is a devastating and highly contagious livestock disease known as peste des petits ruminants (PPR), or sheep and goat plague. As one of the world’s most damaging livestock diseases, PPR spreads rapidly through herds, killing anywhere from 30 to 70 percent of those infected and placing the livelihoods of farmers and their households at significant risk. First identified in Côte d'Ivoire nearly 80 years ago, PPR continues to threaten an estimated 2 billion heads — 80 percent — of the global sheep and goat population in more than 70 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. While concerted global efforts to eradicate the disease have resulted in the development of vaccines over the decades, reaching farmers’ remote and often inaccessible locations with these life-saving PPR vaccines has been costly and logistically difficult. Overcoming barriers: Nepal at the forefront in global fight Overcoming these barriers is the focus of an innovative partnership between Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation, a USAID-funded program that builds partnerships with the private sector to deliver agricultural innovations to smallholder farmers, and Hester Biosciences Nepal Private Limited (Hester Biosciences). Through this partnership, Hester Biosciences is now the first private sector firm to produce a thermostable version of the PPR vaccine, originally developed at Tufts University in the United States, that offers transformative potential to end the spread of the disease in Nepal and beyond. Authors
John Sanders, Yue Xie, David Gazzola, Hanchen Li, Ambily Abraham, Kelly Flanagan, Florentina Rus, Melanie Millerd, Yan Hu, Sierra Guynn, Austin Draper, Sridhar Vakalapudi, Katherine H. Petersson, Dante Zarlenga, Robert W. Li, Joseph F. Urban Jr., Gary R. Ostroff, Anne Zajac, and Raffi V. Aroian Abstract Haemonchus contortus is a critical parasite of goats and sheep. Infection by this blood-feeding gastrointestinal nematode (GIN) parasite has significant health consequences, especially in lambs and kids. The parasite has developed resistance to virtually all known classes of small molecule anthelmintics used to treat it, giving rise in some areas to multidrug resistant parasites that are very difficult to control. Thus, new anthelmintics are urgently needed. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) crystal protein 5B (Cry5B), a naturally occurring protein made by a bacterium widely and safely used around the world as a bioinsecticide, represents a new non-small molecule modality for treating GINs. Cry5B has demonstrated anthelmintic activities against parasites of monogastric animals, including some related to those that infect humans, but has not yet been studied in a ruminant. Here we show that H. contortus adults are susceptible to Cry5B protein in vitro. Cry5B produced in its natural form as a spore-crystal lysate against H. contortus infections in goats had no significant efficacy. However, a new Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) paraprobiotic form of Cry5B called IBaCC (Inactivated Bacterium with Cytosolic Crystals), in which Cry5B crystals are encapsulated in dead Bt cell wall ghosts, showed excellent efficacy in vitro against larval stages of H. contortus and relative protein stability in bovine rumen fluid. When given to sheep experimentally infected with H. contortus as three 60 mg/kg doses, Cry5B IBaCC resulted in significant reductions in fecal egg counts (90%) and parasite burdens (72%), with a very high impact on female parasites (96% reduction). These data indicate that Cry5B IBaCC is a potent new treatment tool for small ruminants in the battle against H. contortus. WASHINGTON, December 9, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agriculture Research Service (ARS) today announced a groundbreaking treatment that prevents anemia, weight loss, poor wool and meat production, and even death in sheep.
ARS researchers partnered with Virginia Tech and the University of Massachusetts' Medical School to solve H. contortus parasite infection, which also happens to be the number one health problem in the U.S. sheep industry. The parasite infects the stomach of ruminant mammals, feeding and interfering with digestion, before ultimately affecting the animal's overall health and stability. "The H. contortus parasite has developed resistance to virtually all known classes of anti-parasitic drugs," said ARS Researcher Dr. Joseph Urban, who lead the research team in testing and implementation of a para-probiotic treatment to kill the parasite that causes H.contortus. The worm parasite mates within the animal and its fertilized eggs pass through the animal's waste into the soil. The larvae then develop to re-infect other unsuspecting animals, spreading the infection throughout a pasture and creating a cycle of infection that hinders animal growth, development and production. Guidelines for quantication Version 1 FOREWORD The methodology developed in these draft guidelines aims to introduce a harmonized international approach to the assessment of the environmental performance of small ruminant supply chains in a manner that takes account of the specificity of the various production systems involved. It aims to increase understanding of small ruminant supply chains and help improve their environmental performance. The guidelines are a product of the Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance (LEAP) Partnership, a multi-stakeholder initiative whose goal is to improve the environmental sustainability of the livestock sector through better metrics and data. The small ruminant1 sector is of worldwide importance. It comprises a wide diversity of systems that provide a variety of products and functions. In 2011, sheep and goats produced more than 5 million tonnes of meat and 24 million tonnes of milk. Production has increased by 1.7 percent and 1.3 percent per year, respectively, during the past 20 years (FAO, 2013). This increase was driven mainly by developing countries in Africa and Asia. However, Oceania (mainly for meat) and Europe still contribute significantly to production. Production systems can vary from intensive systems, in which animals are partially or predominantly housed, to extensive systems that rely on grazing and native forages, and transhumance systems that involve large flock movements. Products are not restricted to meat and milk; sheep are also valued for their wool (more than 2 million tonnes of greasy wool was produced in 2011), and goats for their mohair and cashmere. Small ruminants also play a crucial role in sustaining livelihoods in traditional, small-scale, rural and family-based production systems. Across the small ruminant sector, there is strong interest in measuring and improving environmental performance. In the development of these draft guidelines, the following objectives were regarded as key:
These guidelines underwent a public review. The purpose of the review was to strengthen the advice provided and ensure it meets the needs of those seeking to improve performance through sound assessment practice. The present document is not intended to remain static. It will be updated and improved as the sector evolves and more stakeholders become involved in LEAP, and as new methodological frameworks and data become available. The development and inclusion of guidance on the evaluation of additional environmental impacts is viewed as a critical next step. The strength of the guidelines developed within the LEAP Partnership for the various livestock subsectors stems from the fact that they represent a coordinated cross-sectoral and international effort to harmonize measurement approaches. Ideally, harmonization will lead to greater understanding, transparent application and communication of metrics, and, importantly for the sector, real and measurable improvement in performance.
Data Driven Dairy Decisions for Farmers This guide aims to assist dairy goat farmers using new technologies on farm. It outlines the different technologies available for goats, and offers some general advice on their use. Introduction In the European Union, dairy goat sector is pretty small when compared to dairy cows sector. Even so, EU owns only 3 % of the world’s dairy goat herds, but produces 10.5 % of the world’s goat milk (FAOSTAT, 2014); this is the only continent where goat milk has such an economic importance and organization. In Europe, dairy goat production is more common around the Mediterranean basis, where it is important from an economic, environmental and sociological perspective to the Mediterranean countries (Spain, France, Italy and Greece), but is also important in North Europe countries like the Netherlands. Productive systems vary from semi-extensive situations to highly technological intensive farms. Some regions have typically extensive grazing-based productions, often using native breeds to produce PDO or PGI products. However, farms using high productive breeds tend to intensification. Anyway, there is room for improvement in all cases, so it is worthwhile to go in depth into all the technologies available for dairy goat producers. |
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