SHEEP UP - preservare 4 razze ovine a rischio estinzione nelle province di Belluno, Vicenza, Verona.

In the Veneto Prealps, in the provinces of Belluno, Vicenza and Verona, four sheep breeds are at risk of extinction: the Alpagota, the Lamon, the Foza and the Brogna sheep. To preserve these breeds, with their precious heritage of biodiversity and history, breeders, researchers and local authorities have created the Sheep Up operational group. The genetic recovery program undertaken more than 15 years ago in Veneto is based on a network of custodian breeders and conservation centers, but the survival of these breeds is largely linked to the possibility of identifying models of economic sustainability for this form of small-scale livestock husbandry, in a place where the sense of belonging involves everyone, starting from the school and the youngest.
The Sheep Up project pursued an integrated path of valorization of products like meat, milk and wool, and of related ecosystem services, highlighting the strong link existing between breeds and territory through the characterization of productions, nutraceutical analyses, the search for new products and gastronomic proposals, the drafting of production regulations and the monitoring of grazing animals, using testimonies, historical-anthropological research, graphic materials, QR codes and apps to involve consumers in a process of awareness of the value of these productions from an economic, ecological and sustainability perspective in a delicate and fragile territory of great environmental, cultural and human value, of which these farmers are indispensable custodians.