Typology and extensive smallholders´ farmer-desired traits in the selection of local goats in northern Mexico

Resumen

Objective: To improve a production system, it is necessary to define the critical points for their attention, being the characterization of the system the first step. In this way, it is necessary to know the characteristics of the producer, his problems, limitations and strengths, in order to generate tools that allow making decisions that adjust to the producer's reality.

Design/methodology/approach: It was characterized the goat producers from northern Mexico. A total of 117 goat farmers were interviewed using a survey composed of 54 items. Qualitative variables were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Principal component, factor, and cluster analysis were performed. Two well-differentiated groups were formed. One group comprises similarities in age, family members, milking animals, grazing time, animal age and weight at sale. The second group considers producers with similarities in schooling, milk production, and experience in the activity, price per liter of milk, and sold animals.

Results: The majority select their animals (94%). The main selection criteria are based on appearance (71%) to select bucks and empirical maternal ability (60%) to select does. The producers share similar characteristics, with a deep knowledge of the activity.

Limitations on study/implications: It is imperative to educate goat producers in northern Mexico on the selection of replacement animals through the utilisation of quantifiable records, with the objective of enhancing the productivity of their goat populations.

Findings/conclusions: The system is traditional, with no changes and no technological innovation, and they use very few criteria to select their animals and do not have clear breeding objectives.