Another change that brought difficulties for Gobi and the Mongolian cashmere industry was the sudden introduction of a market economy. Before market liberalization, the nomadic herders that supplied cashmere to Gobi were state employees, with guaranteed pensions and fixed quotas as to the number of animals they could herd. When the economy opened up, many of these herders privatized, thus losing their pensions and experiencing a loss in income. Facing poverty, unemployment, and desperate to feed their families and communities, many herders crossbred their cashmere goats with coarser-haired animals to increase their supply. As a result, from 1990 to 1999 the number of goats in Mongolian nomadic herds doubled from six to eleven million, thus also increasing the supply of cashmere. However, the cashmere produced was of lower quality due to the crossbreeding. These mixed cashmere fibers were not as fine or warm as pure cashmere, and the degradation in quality led to an unfortunate degradation in the reputation of Mongolian cashmere.