An Ontario breeding program to help boost dairy goats’ milk production and improve goat meat quality will itself get improvements backed by public funding.
Ontario Goat, the Guelph-based provincial body for goat breeders, got a pledge of $700,000 Wednesday from the federal government for its GoGen pilot breeding project.
The funds will go toward the program’s work and to “update, modify and bring efficiencies to current goat genetic tools already provided by the goat industry.”
The pilot project is expected to help determine the value of a domestic genetics improvement program tailored to the goat industry.
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Several existing programs, including CanWest DHI for milk testing, Goatgenetics.ca for goat evaluations, and Gencor for genetic evaluation and assessment of artificial insemination tools, will be involved in GoGen, the government said.
“This project has great potential to help goat producers become more profitable, increase sales and access new milk and meat markets,” eastern Ontario MP Gary Schellenberger said in a government release from Stratford during the International Goat Symposium there.
“Through the use of pilot herds, this project will allow producers to learn the value of implementing goat genetic improvement programs from their peers,” Jim Rickard, chair of Ontario’s Agricultural Adaptation Council (AAC), said in the same release.
“These programs can help position the Ontario goat industry to capture future growth opportunities, both domestic and export, and remain competitive.”
As well, “by implementing an integrated pilot program, the Ontario goat industry can demonstrate the value that these combined programs and services can have to the entire goat industry and to the individual goat producer,” Jennifer Haley, executive director of Ontario Goat, said in the same release.
The federal funding for GoGen will flow through the five-year (2009-14), $163 million Canadian Agricultural Adaptation Program, which the AAC delivers in Ontario.
