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County gets $15,000 for goat meat study
The Halifax Agriculture Development Office has been awarded a $15,000
grant from the Tobacco Commission to help meet domestic demands for
goat meat. "This is one of the fastest growing markets for farmers we
have," said Linda Faye Wallace, Ag agent for Halifax County, noting
that currently about 85 percent of the goat meat consumed in this
country is imported from Australia or New Zealand.
Wallace said on Friday she had submitted a grant request to the Tobacco
Commission for $50,000 to help develop a marketing strategy for local
goat producers, similar to the beef initiative the County undertook
several years ago when they were able to get the beef cattle market up
and running at the old Bethel landfill.
She noted that the demand for goat meat is steadily increasing,
particularly during special holiday periods in the Islamic and Hispanic
communities. "If you go into a high end restaurant and see 'Chevron'
advertised that is usually goat meat," Wallace said.
Ned Strange, a local goat producer, welcomed the news of the grant,
saying it should help with marketing goats which he has been doing for
the past 14 years. "They've been a pretty good little sideline
investment," Strange says of his goats. He said most buyers purchase
the female goats for breeding purposes, while the males are sold in
livestock markets for meat, such as one near Danville which holds a
monthly goat sale and another near Blackstone, where local goats are
also taken for sale.
Strange says there are at least a dozen goat producers in Halifax
County, and he feels that if a marketing strategy can be developed to
show when goat meat is in the greatest demand and what buyers are
looking for (as far as weight and type), it would certainly mean that
producers would be able to get rid of their animals at a fair price.
"The biggest problem we face is simply that the large buyers will
likely want to purchase 400 to 500 goats at a time, and we simply don't
have that many for sale. If we could establish the same breeding period
for all our producers, then we would begin to fill that need," he said.
Wallace points to the fact that goats are "pretty low maintenance."
Strange agrees, "I started with them simply as a way to get rid of what
our cows wouldn't eat," he says. So as Wallace puts it, "I asked myself
why nothing was being done to develop this market which I think can be
very beneficial to Halifax County."