Reykjavík Grapevine - 28.08.2015, Síða 32
Special species
Last year, you ran a crowdfunding
campaign to save the Icelandic
goat, right?
This farm was saved last autumn thanks
to crowdfunding. We had donors from
all over the world—from places as far as
South Korea, Nepal, and Malaysia. It was
really amazing. I got enough money to deal
with the bank and start over.
So this autumn, we are starting to
build a cheesemaking room—a little house
on the side of this building—to make some
goat cheese. Right now, the goats’ cheese
I have is made at Erpsstaðir—a little dairy
farm that does ice cream and skyr. Would
you like to taste?
Sure!
[At this point, Jóhanna leaves the room
briefly, only to return with two jars of goat
cheese. It receives the official Grapevine
verdict of “confirmed deliciousness.”]
Nom. MMM. Okay, so what makes
the Icelandic goat so unique?
They are now a special species, because
they have been isolated here for 1100
years. No goats have been imported in
that time. They are therefore the purest
old breed you find in Europe—similar to
our horses.
I read that there were not many
Icelandic goats left when you
launched the campaign. What
happened to them?
In the old days, a lot of goats came with
the Vikings. But then it got colder—there
was this mini Ice Age, we call it—around
the 12th or 13th century. People needed fat
meat to survive, and they needed wool. So
the sheep became the saviour of Iceland,
and has been ever since. But it was always
goats up to that point.
In the 1930s, we had 3,000 goats
in Iceland, mostly in small towns on the
coast. After the war, though, we learnt
to grow gardens as we got richer and
modernised. The goats love gardens,
but it was forbidden to keep livestock in
towns. So after that, the goats nearly all
disappeared. The farmers had cows and
it was a kind of sign of poverty to have
goats—not something a noble farmer
wanted to have.
Even today, the old sheep farmers are
the worst enemies of the goats. My father
never allowed me to have a goat when I
was a kid, because he said they weren’t
even edible—that they were naughty, that
they were bad, and that they smelled bad.
But he only knew this from old myths. The
goat was actually the first animal to live
with humans. Dogs came after.
The goats escape!
How are they doing today?
There are nearly 900 now. In 1962, there
were around seventy to eighty Icelandic
goats, and just one hornless goat. The
hornless goat had certain genes—no
horns and a unique brown colour. So
it was just one goat that saved all these
beautiful colours.
In 1999 when I got the rest of them,
there were just four left, and they were on
their way to slaughter. So I was allowed to
move them here.
[Jóhanna looks out of the window. Some of
the goats have escaped.]
Oh, one got out. Oh. Many got out!
[After a brief wrangle with some goats,
Jóhanna returns.]
If I had lost the farm last year and the
goats had been slaughtered, fifteen years
of breeding would have disappeared. We
would be at square one all over again.
However, people are now very interested
in the cheese, in the meat—everything.
Fifteen years ago, people would shake
their heads and say, “Goats aren’t even
edible!”
Since then, this has been my
mission: to breed these kind of goats and
to teach Icelanders to once again use goat
products. Most people who have goats
keep them as pets. They don’t think of
different goats as related to each other.
Really, we need three other farms like this,
all working on breeding.
Do you think conservation is
important, then?
We shall preserve everything we have.
We have beautiful breeds of animals in
Iceland. Instead of trying to import bigger
cows, for example, something that gives
more milk but requires more corn, we shall
take care of what is here. Importing bigger
animals is not what fits us. We’re going to
look a lot more at what we already have.
So is the Icelandic goat finally
saved?!
Once I can make my own cheese, I hope
then it will finally be saved. Then I have
a product to sell all year around. People
are waiting for the cheese, they’re really
waiting for it.
When Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir’s goat farm ran into financial difficulties a couple
of years ago, it looked like the end of the line for the Icelandic goat. Nearly one year on
from a successful crowdfunding campaign to save the farm, the Háafell goat centre is lead-
ing the way in goat conservation, with Jóhanna working hard to breed more goats—and
produce new and exciting goat products. We caught up with her in the farm’s well-tended
rose garden to see how things are going.
Photo
Art Bicnick
Words
Ciarán Daly
The Goats At
Háafell Are G.o.a.t.
Remembering the plight of the noble
Icelandic goat, at the Háafell Goat Farm
32 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 13 — 2015FOOD
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