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Goats in Short Supply |
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Goats in Short Supply |
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| On top of everything else, we are in the grip
of a goat shortage. Good news for those
who raise goats; not so good for the growing number of people eating
them. It’s a supply-and-demand thing
rather important to Missouri, which ranks eighth in the nation in
its number of meat goats: 84,600 and shrinking.
Someone is counting goats? During a shortage, at least, every
horned head matters to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“It’s only been the last few years that they’ve done annual
estimates for goats,” said Jodie Pennington, small-ruminant
specialist for the University of Missouri Extension and Lincoln
University. Here is why: As the nation’s
ethnic population rises, so does demand for what some call chevon —
that’s goat meat. Many immigrants like it, especially on holy days.
The sad truth is that the United States, despite its agricultural
riches, must import 750,000 goats yearly from places like Australia
— and who needs more trade deficits in these times? Slaughter goats right now are bringing in about $2 a pound,” Pennington said, “and that’s double what’s being paid for cattle. It is unusual to see that. … People are saying the goats just aren’t out there.“The concern is if prices get too high, we price goat meat out of the market.” So extension officials are encouraging Missourians with a few acres to spare to think goats. They demand little in feed costs. “Goats will eat your weeds and brush, thistle — typically stuff cattle won’t touch,” said David Burton, communications specialist at University of Missouri Extension in Springfield. Goats do make “a nice hobby” for Merle Freener Jr., who owns 32 head on nine acres in Polo, Mo. And, true, there is some prestige in being president of the Missouri Meat Goat Producers Association, northern division, which meets monthly at a pizza place in Chillicothe. “But to try to make my living off just goats? Oh, no. I’d starve,” said Freener, who makes his money driving a truck for Vocational Services Inc. in Liberty. Farmers said the consumer need not fear goat meat — it’s leaner than chicken and less gamy than deer. An estimated three-quarters of the world’s population eats it regularly. Last week at the St. Joseph Stockyards, more than 200 people squeezed into the sale barn: old folks and youngsters, Mennonites in straw hats and commission agents with cell phones, white and black, Hispanic and Middle Eastern. They had come through rain and mud to bid on goats. The St. Joseph Stockyards launched goat auctions about two years ago. Most of the critters sold will make long trips, to Chicago or the East Coast, where the few goat-processing plants that exist serve large ethnic populations. Forty-pound kids went last week for about $80 a head. Last month, a Muslim fellow from Chicago showed up and left with $10,000 worth of baby Boer goats, the tastiest of all. “Yeah, this goat deal has gotten pretty active here,” said Corbitt Wall of the USDA Marketing Service. “Because of the demand, I’d say the fastest-growing livestock producer is and will be the goat people “But it’s labor-intensive, and fencing is a problem. A major problem.” As they say in the trade, if your fences won't hold water, then they won't hold goats. |
