Casa Agícola Cardoso Melim

Anyone who sees him in the stable, staff in hand and hat on his head driving the flock, will not suspect that Tiago Melim, 38, worked for several years sitting at a computer. But it worked: he was a computer worker in Porto, the city where he was born, grew up and lived. He did so, however, without ever losing his connection to Trás-os-Montes or Carvas, the small village on the outskirts of Murça where his family's farm was. “I used to come here to harvest and when I wanted to start a project in the area of ​​livestock I decided to move for good,” he says. Today, this father of six is ​​a proud transmontana highland goat farmer whose milk gives rise to the region's famous goat cheese, a PDO-certified product. Between March and July, the time of milk production, Tiago milks the animals once a day - “I have about 150 head of cattle”, he says - and the 50 liters of milk that result from milking are collected by LEICRAS (Co-op Goat Milk Producers). Do not think, however, that his goats live solely for this purpose. They have another equally noble one: they are also sapping goats, that is, they clear the forest terrain to prevent fires. And, it turns out, they're as good at doing so as giving milk.