The goat industry is pretty great – but a little help from improved genetics wouldn’t hurt. Stratford played host to the International Goat Symposium last week, a three-day event sponsored by Ontario Goat, the provincial association that oversees this rapidly expanding segment of agriculture.
The federal government believes in this growth as well. During the symposium, Perth-Wellington MP Gary Schellenberger announced over $700,000 in funding for the development of an integrated dairy goat genetic improvement program.
“The goat industry represents one of the largest growth opportunities in Ontario agriculture today,” said Schellenberger at the official announcement last week. “This project has great potential to help goat producers become more profitable, increase sales and access new milk and meat markets.”
The pilot project will help determine the value and benefits of a domestic genetic improvement program specifically geared to the goat industry and will work with several existing programs, including CanWest DHI for milk testing, www.goatgenetics.ca for goat evaluations, and Gencor (a leader in the cow genetics industry) on genetic evaluation and assessment of artificial insemination tools.
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