Large scale livestock breeding

In this context, large-scale livestock breeding is used by historians to denote the development, during the Ottoman occupation, of a shepherding economy of scale, which is associated with the commercial extroversion and technical specialization of the societies that practice it. Large scale sheepherding is connected to the efforts of the Ottoman state to include sheepherding centers in the production system as well as its forethought to protect sheepherding from the dismantling that we usually see in other farming activities with tax exemptions and granting of special regimes. Through this procedure sheepherding populations are turned into a production force in the empire, become involved in the mechanism of collecting the sheepherding tax and penetrate the state agency for the supply of the empire. This way they acquire an upgraded relationship with the state which provides them with the privilege to access or intervene in the state mechanisms, a fact which in turn maintains or even instigates their pursuit for a stronger economic presence. This is realized when sheepherding is developed into a broader commercial activity, which is at the same time connected with the economic development of the rest of Europe and the overall operation of the country’s Mediterranean economy. Thus arises the paradigm of the mountain sheepherding towns, which participates in the organization and productions systems of the Ottoman world and pursues its development through commercial activities, starting with the transportation of the raw material and moving onto the transportation market per se.