A typology of goat farming in Reunion Island prior to the implementation of a breeding scheme adapted to the French overseas departments

Abstract

In September 2008, The "Office de développement de l’économie agricole d’outre-mer" carried out an assignment in the five French overseas departments and territories to evaluate the demand for genetic improvement of breeding goats (Boué et al., 2008). This expertise concluded with an original proposal: testing the implementation of a common breeding scheme adapted to the 5 territories. As Reunion Island offers a favourable context for such a project, it was proposed to locate the selection nucleus there. For this purpose, a first assessment of the diversity of livestock systems was undertaken to understand farmer practices and breeding management orientations. We present here A typology of goats’ livestock systems stemming from a study realized in 2009 (Bouyssière, 2009) is thus presented in this paper.