The dairy goat industry in Norway: Challenges in a historical perspective

Norway is a small country in population (5 million), but with a rather large area. There are only 33,000 dairy goats left in the country, as opposed to many more a hundred years ago. Milk is used mainly for production of brown whey “cheese”. However, ordinary white cheeses are the expanding market for goat milk. Therefore, quality of casein becomes a more important issue. Taste and coagulation properties of milk have been drastically changed during the last 10–15 years. One reason is a reduction in the prevalence of a mutation in CSN1S1. This mutation was seen so far only in Norwegian goats. The mutation is a deletion in exon12 and leads to higher concentrations of free fatty acids and poorer coagulation, probably due to reduced content of αS1-casein in the milk. Additional reasons for changes in milk quality are: (i) improvement of the nutrition of dairy goats, which include higher proportions of fat in concentrates in the diet and (ii) a project that has got rid of CAEV in the major part of the goat population of Norway.