Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir is an Icelandic farmer responsible for saving the

Icelandic goat The Icelandic goat ( is, íslenska geitin ), also known as the 'settlement goat', is an ancient breed of domestic goat believed to be of Norwegian origin and dating back to the settlement of Iceland over 1100 years ago. This breed of goat was on t ...

through breeding them at her farm, Háafell in

Borgarbyggð Borgarbyggð () is a municipality in the west of Iceland. The biggest township in the municipality is Borgarnes, with a population of 1,887 inhabitants. Other densely populated areas in the municipality include Bifröst, Hvanneyri, Kleppjárnsrey ...

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

Career

Jóhanna Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir runs the Háafell farm in

. Prior to running the farm, she was a

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...

, although it had been her family's farm for three generations. Jóhanna has raised six children on the farm. Since 2000, she has been breeding the

in an effort to save it from extinction. Through her work, the farm has also become known as the Icelandic Goat Conservation Center, and is the only goat breeding farm in Iceland. To fund the ongoing work, she organised a crowd funding campaign on

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

in 2012 in order to expand the facilities available at the farm. Jóhanna provided 20 goats to the production of the ''

Game of Thrones ''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the first ...

'' fourth season episode "

The Laws of Gods and Men "The Laws of Gods and Men" is the sixth episode of the fourth season of HBO's medieval fantasy television series '' Game of Thrones'', and the 36th episode overall. Directed by Alik Sakharov and written by Bryan Cogman, the episode first aired ...

". Over time, Jóhanna has created a market for goat products within Iceland. In 2014, the farm was threatened with

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan. Formally, a mortg ...

. In response, Jóhanna organised a further campaign, this time on IndieGoGo, to raise the 10 million

Icelandic krona Icelandic refers to anything of, from, or related to Iceland and may refer to: *Icelandic people *Icelandic language *Icelandic alphabet * Icelandic cuisine See also * Icelander (disambiguation) * Icelandic Airlines, a predecessor of Icelandai ...

needed to keep the farm open. By the time of the campaign, the numbers of the Icelandic goat had increased from 90 to around 820, with half located on Jóhanna's farm. If the funding was not found, it would have resulted in the goats being slaughtered. After the success of the campaign, Jóhanna has looked to making the farm self sufficient by producing her own

goat cheese Goat cheese, or chèvre ( or ; from French language, French ''fromage de chèvre'' 'goat cheese'), is cheese made from goat's milk. Goats were among the first animals to be domesticated for producing food. Goat cheese is made around the world w ...

year round.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergmann Thorvaldsdottir, Johanna Living people Icelandic women farmers Mammal conservation Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir Bergmann Þorvaldsdóttir Year of birth missing (living people)