Future Positive for Meat Goat Market

Partial Article from Goat Rancher - March 2001
By Doris Uphhoff

One hundred pllus goat breeders attended the Midwest Meat Goat Conference in Phillipsburg, Kansas, on October 21, 2000, and heard encouraging news from featured speakers.

Attendees came from a large area on the Midwest - Colorado, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. Many of thoses in attendance were mainly dairy goat breeders but were looking to the meat goat as a possible cross that would create a better and larger market for their animals.

A positive picture was painted for the future of meat goat breeders by Dr. Emanuel Ajuzie from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. His presentation contained much positive news for the breeders attending, such as the demand for goats is inelastic - increasing prices while not losing any of the market. The No. 1 meat eaten in the world is goat meat, and in the United States, the consumption is on the increase. Recorded slaughter of goats in the United States from 1991 to 1996 increased 270%; however, it is estimated that over a million goats are slaughtered for personal use or back yard slaughtering with this figure not being reflected in the published total.

Legal immigration to the United States is 61,000 people annually with these coming mainly from countries where goat meat is well accepted by the population. Add this number onto the number of ethnic residents already in the states and with the health sector promoting the virtues of goat meat you can readily see the potential growth of the market.

Goat meat imported to the United States showed a growth from 86,067 pounds in 1989 to 172,280 pounds in 1992, where it peaked and then the producers in the US got into the picture and it dropped off sharply in 1993 to 136,360 pounds. Goat meat being exported from the US has show a sharp drop, falling from 122,056 pounds in 1989 to 3,504 pounds in 1993. This reflected the increase of demand for goat meat in America.

Dr. Ajuzie made the statement that if all the goats n the US were slaughtered at one time, this resulting supply would not fill the demand for 30 days.