Sheep and Goat Production in Portugal: A Dynamic View

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.