With their snow-white, fine fleece and inverted "eight" shaped horns... the figures of Albas cashmere goats can en from time to time on the grasslands of Albas Sumu, Ejin Horo Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The Albas cashmere goats rd on the Ordos Plateau are a protected national livestock genetic resource breed. However, due to a lack of scientific awareness and methods for breed protection, the Albas cashmere goaonce faced a crisis of crossbreeding.

Breeding high-quality breeding stock is the key. In 1983, the Ejin Horo Banner government invested in establishie Albas Cashmere Goat Breeding Farm (now Inner Mongolia Yiwai White Cashmere Goat Co., Ltd.), introducing a batch of purebred Albas cashmere goats from he Wurenduxi Mountains for selection and propagation.

Sun Guojun, head of Yiwai Company, introduced that as the number of breeding stock increased, the difficulty of raising thm also grew, making the traditional extensive farming model unsustainable. Consequently, various breeding farms have successively transitioned to intensive farming. Yiwai Company subdivides breeding stock types by gender and rowth stage, has set up 33 breeding stock herds, and employs local farmers to manage them.

It is necessary to both maintain the breed and improve its quality. In rent years, Ejin Horo Banner has actively built platforms for industry-academia-research exchange, conducting scientific research cooperation with universities such as China Agricultural University and Inner Mongolia University to continuously the quality of the Albas cashmere goat germplasm. "The application of a series of new technologies and methods has increased the average annual cashmere yield of our bred goaom less than 300 grams in the past to 750 grams, with the average fineness of the cashmere maintained at 14.5 micron said Sun Guojun.

To date, the stock of Albas cashmere goats in Ejin Horo Banner is approximately 1.8 million, with an annual raw cashmere outut reaching 1,200 tons, benefiting and driving over 15,000 farming and herding households. "Next, we will continue to increase efforts in tpromotion of high-quality breeds and technological innovation to achieve a simultaneous increase in quantity and quality of the Albas cashmere goat, allowing this 'treasure of the grassland' to more farmers and herders," said Hao Guibin, Deputy Director of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau of Ejin