Once upon a time in the Greek area there were beautiful breeds of animals that today we see in photographs and in exhibitions... of low or moderate productivity, resistant to the special local conditions, with low or moderate requirements... the needs of a people, who ate tomatoes in the summer and cabbage in the winter, were covered. At some point, tomato and cabbage became a year-round production, meat a daily presence and not just on Sundays, dairy products a selection process. And the needs were no longer met: animals had to be improved, to give more and better production, breeding systems to change, livestock management to change.

The project was very easy: since others had changed the entire production process before us, we bought it ready. Improved animals come from abroad, they are housed in improved facilities, they are fed in an improved way, they perform better... the local breeds are degraded, they disappear, they are saved somewhere thanks to some financial support programs and for as long as the programs work.

All of the above is known. The stimulus, to rewrite them, was an article in a local newspaper regarding the welcoming in Northern Greece of a movement to produce the famous Japanese beef. We will buy know-how again with pride…I don't know what the produced meat will be called, because clearly the Japanese made sure to trademark it as a name. And they deserve all the credit, from the moment they recorded their country's livestock since 1915, they proceeded to genetic improvement with research, patience and effort, so that, after a century, they offer the rich meat-eaters of the world a unique delicacy.

Greece produces feta with milk from Lacaune sheep, meat from Limouzin calves, milk from European black and white cows. Why not Kobe style beef via Italy and Germany (not even straight from the source!) The animal processing industries don't care to correct the typos, and why? Individual livestock farms try to survive by any means, and they do well. The lost opportunities are charged as the responsibility of the state, which did not care 30-40-50 years ago and made us permanent customers of the "developed" countries...