all made new friends and learned such a lot from a combined gathering of some of the best minds in the world alpaca industry.
“Having attended this event I cannot imagine not attending the next in September 2013 in New Zealand – a conference like this should be of the highest priority to alpaca owners across the world.” Amantani UK were “stunned” by the amount the
conference raised. “This is surely a testament to the integrity and solidarity of the alpaca community, not least the WAC organising committee and the raffl e prize donors,” said Fred Branson, a co-director at the charity. “When this news was passed on to our team in Peru, the stunned reaction spread!
“The money raised almost exactly covers the cost of accommodating 12 children in Amantani’s boarding house for a whole year. On average, each child gains 600 hours a year by not having to walk between home and school. This is time that they can now put towards learning the skills they need to contribute to the future development of their communities. “On behalf of everyone at Amantani, both here in the UK and in Peru, thank you so much.”
Andrew Merriwether, USA. “I’m giving a lecture and holding several workshops on genetics. The conference is an excellent platform from which to share my latest research and I’m meeting delegates from across the globe, offering breeding advice and talking about disease prevention.”
Canada
Canada has an active alpaca industry with many Canadians seeking improvements
in their herds. Large numbers of alpacas were fi rst imported from outside of North America, primarily from Peru and Chile, in 1992.
Peter Woodyer from the Canadian Llama and Alpaca Association described some of the challenges including serving a bilingual membership – all communications must be issued in both French and English – and large geographical regions.
Membership of the association stands at 300 and there is a population of 1589 registered animals.
Jan Oevind Moskaug, President of the Norwegian Alpaca
Society, and Shirley Bettinson, Toft Alpacas and WAC organising
committee. “Our Society currently has 45 members so it’s very young,” explained Jan. “I have 12 animals but some of our members have 40/50 so the overall population is growing.
“I’ve found it useful to network with international colleagues, talking to breeders and fi bre producers and fi nding out where our industry needs to be heading. “Alpaca breeding is well suited to Norwegian farming as the country has very small farms and the agricultural industry is struggling so we are looking for other ways to make a living from the land. “It’s a challenge but I feel optimistic we can move
forward and I’ll be taking some positive messages back to our membership – the conference has been an excellent insight into the global industry.”
Stephen Nessworthy, Linda Nessworthy and Peter-John Garbutt, President of the Alpaca Breeders’ Society in South Africa. “It’s fascinating for us to see what’s happening in the UK which is streets ahead of our fl edgling industry. If we want to be truly sustainable, we have to work together and learn from those that are more experienced.”
Alpaca Summer 2012 13
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