YORKSHIRE DAIRY GOATS

Their core work

Yorkshire Dairy Goats is a commercial dairy goat farming business based in York, UK, that brings hands-on livestock production expertise to large European agricultural research consortia. As an industry practitioner partner in two flagship H2020 programs on small ruminant production, they contribute real farm data, operational breeding experience, and the perspective of a working commercial goat dairy to research aimed at improving sustainability and genetic performance. Their core value to research teams lies in grounding scientific inquiry in operational farming realities — from day-to-day animal management to the consumer market dynamics that shape the sector. They represent exactly the type of SME farm operator that EU livestock research ultimately aims to serve and engage.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first project (iSAGE, 2016) reflects engagement with the broad sustainability landscape of European small ruminant farming — socio-economic pressures, consumer trends, demographic shifts, and participatory methods to bring farmers into research design. By their second project (SMARTER, 2018), the focus narrowed considerably toward the technical core of livestock genetics: genomic selection, mathematical models, predictive biology, and quantifying trade-offs between feed efficiency and resilience. This is a clear progression from systems-level assessment toward precision breeding science, likely driven by the research community's growing appetite for genomic data from working commercial farms rather than experimental flocks.

Yorkshire Dairy Goats is moving from broad sustainability assessment toward precision livestock breeding science, suggesting future interest in genomic tools, on-farm data collection, and data-driven animal management partnerships.

How they like to work

Yorkshire Dairy Goats has participated exclusively as a consortium partner, never as a project coordinator — a pattern consistent with a commercial farm contributing practical expertise rather than leading research agendas. With 60 unique partners across 17 countries from just two projects, they have been embedded in very large, pan-European consortia (both iSAGE and SMARTER are among the most significant EU small ruminant research programs of the H2020 era). This tells a prospective partner that Yorkshire Dairy Goats is experienced in large multi-national collaboration, comfortable operating as one voice among many, and valued as an authentic industry representative rather than a research generator.

Despite only two projects, Yorkshire Dairy Goats has built connections with 60 unique partners spanning 17 countries — a remarkably broad network for a small farming SME, reflecting participation in two flagship pan-European programs that each drew universities, research institutes, breed societies, and farm businesses from across the continent. Their network is densely European rather than regionally concentrated.

What sets them apart

Yorkshire Dairy Goats occupies a rare position as a commercial dairy goat farm that has demonstrated its relevance to EU-funded research — giving them credibility as an authentic industry voice that most academic partners cannot replicate. For consortium builders needing a UK-based small ruminant farming practitioner, they offer direct access to real production data, working breeding decisions, and genuine farmer perspectives at a time when post-Brexit UK farm SME participation in EU research is uncommon and therefore valued for geographic and sectoral diversity. Their contribution is not scientific output but something harder to find: a real farm willing to engage with research over multi-year projects.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SMARTER
  Their largest funded project (EUR 70,000), addressing the technical frontier of small ruminant genetics — genomic selection, predictive biology, and mathematical modelling of efficiency-resilience trade-offs across European breeds.
• iSAGE
  A comprehensive pan-European sustainability assessment of sheep and goat production covering socio-economic dynamics, consumer trends, climate change, and participatory research methods — a broad foundation project for the sector.