Goat meat steering group forms

Farmers are forming Meat Goat NZ, a producer body to grow the industry and give producers a voice.

A member of the steering group, Dave Aitken of Waitiri Station in Central Otago, said despite the potential from goat meat being the mostly widely eaten red meat in the world, the New Zealand kill had slipped from 1.3 million in the 1980s, to 90,000 now.

Wild goats captured in the North Island still made up a significant portion of the kill.

But Mr Aitken believed there was potential to grow meat volumes from farmed goats, especially in the South Island.

The fledgling organisation hopes to access levies paid to the former Meat and Wool New Zealand but which was no longer being collected after last year's referendum.

The plan now was to turn the Southern Boer Group into a replacement national body which will contract to Beef and Lamb New Zealand to fulfil the obligations of the organisation's original mandate.

Mr Aitken said part of the problem was a lack of information about numbers of farmers and goats.

This was caused in part by many farmers having goats but not identifying themselves as goat farmers, Mr Aitken said.

Premium meat prices of up to $4.50 a kg were possible right up until the goats cut their four teeth, by which time a carcass weight of 20.5kg can be reached by an animal which ate almost anything, including weeds.

"That makes it a pretty viable animal against its inputs."

Ideally, he would like to see an annual kill of 200,000 to 300,000 a year, which would make the industry viable.

Goat meat did not have religious or quota obstacles and growers did not supply supermarkets.

Mr Aitken runs about 1700 does on his Kawarau Gorge farm - about 30% of his total stock units.