With regard to the correspondent who objects to offering goats to Third World communities as a form of aid, suggesting that they would be better turning to farming (Have Your Say, November 17) might I point out that goats can, famously, live on almost anything – shrub, thorn bushes, odd patches of grass etc, and with a restricted need for water, meaning that they can live in semi arid conditions, and allow their owners to do the same.

They are also far more mobile than a field of corn, enabling a flock of goats to travel over hundreds of miles, allowing the vegetation in one area to re-grow before the flock returns.

Trying to change from one style of food production to the other might well be impossible, and would probably be extremely difficult. As people who watch westerns will be aware, there was considerable conflict between farmers and ranchers in the ‘Wild West’, as they tried to use the same area of land in two different incompatible ways.

Setting communities against each other might not be the most effective way to ‘ecologically appropriate’ living.

Perhaps this is a case of not looking a gift horse – or goat – in the mouth.

PETER DAVEY, Barrie Road, Moordown, Bournemouth