The Limerick charity which is the Republic's only organisation dedicated to donating livestock to developing countries sent its 2,000th goat abroad earlier this month.
Although the focus of Bothar was originally on sending cows as development aid, the BSE scare and the adaptability of goats to harsh conditions has meant this species has become the organisation's most popular milk-producing export.
Dave Moloney, global project manager of the nine-year-old organisation, said the dairy goats get sent to farms which do not have the means to provide for a heifer (a young cow which has never calved) and to countries which have banned the import of cows from Europe. More than 1,200 heifers have been sent to Uganda, Rwanda, Cameroon, Lebanon and Albania, but now Tanzania has become the main recipient. That country also received the designated 2000th goat, named Milly, in the recent airlift of 149 dairy animals. She was sponsored by the pupils of Presentation National School, Millstreet, Co Cork, as part of a nationwide Bothar na nGabhar project where schools each raise £250 to send away a goat.
The project was conceived in 1991 by a group of people who wanted to channel the energy created by Limerick's Treaty 300 celebrations into a longterm project.
Hens are also donated after a family has completed a training programme and prepared facilities, and earlier this year the first airlift of 40 pigs to Cameroon was carried out following two years of negotiation and preparation.
The organisation's chairman, T.J. Maher, a former IFA president and MEP and a founder member of Bothar, described the gifts as a self-help measure. Over 10 years, one cow can lead to 10 heifers and 10 bull calves.
But he has found it hard to believe that animals would continue to be donated in greater numbers as time went on, while the revival in goat farming has ensured a steady supply of kid goats since 1994. "Goats are easy to maintain and, of course, do not consume so much food. Weight for weight on intake of food, they produce more milk than cows," he said.
From his experience in the European Parliament, Mr Maher saw that the sending of funds as a development measure is often unsatisfactory with the people most in need sometimes not receiving them. "We know the recipients. We know they are going to make good on one cow or one goat or one pig, and the first female offspring is passed on to another farmer," he said.
Next month a cargo of heifers will be sent to Kosovo, and China and Vietnam are also expected to be recipients of this new version of the Irish diaspora.
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