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Prospects of camelid fibre production in the Andean regions of Bolivia

(Javier Delgado, Germany)

The largest population of llamas, consisting of about 2 million heads, is located in the Andean regions of Bolivia at elevations of 3800 m above sea level and higher. In these regions, llamas contribute substantially to the economy of marginal production systems in a range of extreme environments that limit the development of other types of livestock. The fleece of llamas, in contrast to that of alpacas, is lighter, double coated, and its fibres coarser and more heterogeneous (Telleria, 1973). These characteristics have prevented wider utilisation of llama fibres by the textile industry. New industrialised machines that can dehair the llama fleece, have been developed, thus permitting direct inclusion of the finer fibres in textiles tops and offering promising prospects for llama producers. This work will be conducted with the objective to identify prospects and strategies for the development of fine fibre production with llamas and the market will be surveyed in Europe, whose textile industry is the world's major user of camelid hair.

A-Definition and choice of selection criteria

B-Measurement of fleece characteristics.

Objective measurement of fibre quality

Non-objective measurement of fibre quality

C-Management of the collected data within a database

Fibre samples will be obtained from midsides of 200 llamas (50% Th'ampullis and 50% Kh'aras) because the samples from withers and midsides are more representative, because of their higher heterogeneity (lower coefficients of variation).

Sampling criteria: Age, sex and colour

Sampling age categories: at ages 1, 2, 3, 4 and older than 5 years

Database:

  1. -Subjective appraisal of fleece type style, handle, character
  2. -Fleece quantity

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