Pag is the story of a windswept Croatian island, with a strong predominance of white rocks. On closer look, the limestone rock leaves some space for grasses to grow timidly. The Bora (the wind) and the salt impose a harsh selection of the flora: only certain plants, such as sage, eternal flower, Jerusalem thorn or fennel, manage to grow on the island. Man is adapted to the island's inhospitable environment, especially to the Bora. He installed several kilometres of salt marshes, supplied by the wind and the sea. He also installed sheep on the island, the only specie able to use the island's greenery. Turning over the stones, the sheep optimise their meals in search of hidden resources. Pag is the story of an island that has maintained a breeding's tradition dating back to almost 3,000 years. It is known for its sheep's cheese (Paški Sir) made on the island.
In Pag, it is as if time was stopped. There are no big farms or companies here. The farmers have small sheepfolds where they mainly milk by hand. The plots of land are generally delimited by dry stone walls, behind which the sheep find a shelter when the Bora wind blows strongly. The average farm has 50 sheep and the milk is collected by the island's cheese dairies (the only modern development for the production of Pag's cheese). A few farmers still produce and sell their own tomes.
We discovered the breeding of dairy sheep on the island with Tonci. Settle down since 20 years when he took over his parent's land, Tonci raises today 30 dairy ewes and two rams of "Pag sheep" breed (branch of the Dalmatian breed). With an average of 1 litre of milk per ewe and per day during the lactation period, sold at around 2€ to the neighbouring cheese factory (Gligora cheese factory, Kolan), Tonci has a small traditional farm that provides him a more than satisfactory income. The ewes live on 30 hectares of rocky land and produce milk of optimal quality in the spring, when the grass and plants grow. The ewes are supplemented with alfalfa and cereals in winter, when the island's natural resources are at their lowest. The ewes give birth to a lamb in January. While some young ewes are kept for the flock's turnover, all the lambs are sold for meat (lamb on the spit being the second speciality of the island).
We have seen the evening milking. Milking is a bit like a dance performance. As Tonci walks among the sheep with his bucket and stool, each ewe knows the choreography by heart: three steps forward, a half turn, a small step back. Milking can begin!
As is the case of many dairy sheep farms (as with José-Mari and Marion in the Spanish Basque Country), the wool of Pag's sheep is not valued. It is an unused resource on the island and thrown away in nature.
Sheep farming has shaped the island. Pag's island has 30,000 sheep for just over 8,000 inhabitants and produces 220 tons of Pag's cheese every year. Livestock farming is, with tourism, the main economic activity on the island. Can livestock farming and tourism coexist sustainably on Pag's island? The expansion of tourist areas in Croatia could one day compete with the island's agricultural activity, by absorbing the land allocated to animals. But not only that. Croatia is a country with a different work culture from ours. Here, the majority of the population works until 15 hours (a tradition from the Yugoslav past) and tourism is an easy source of income, mainly on the coast. As many Croatians say: "A young person who wants to earn money without working too much, he buys two flats and rents them for 6 months in the year". Indirectly, tourism contributes to slowing down the takeover of farms like Tonci's farm in Croatia, where the daily penalties of breeding -even for 30 sheep- slow down the next generations.
Tonci took part in a report on ARTE (German/French TV channel) in the program "Invitation au voyage", which you will find the link below. We highly recommend this short video to understand the history of the Pag's island!