What the Bleat? We're Short on Goat Meat

(March 16) -- Goat has been called "the soccer of meat": Everyone loves it but Americans. Traditionally, the agricultural viability of goats in this country has been limited to tangy cheeses, petting zoos and mohair sweaters.

No more. A recent enthusiasm for goat meat has increased demand in the United States to the point that the nation is facing a dire goat shortage.

"We're scrambling, but there are more customers every day and they are growing faster than we are adding goats," says Yvonne Zweede-Tucker, a goat rancher in Montana who is organizing a conference in Indianapolis for goat producers.

In Missouri, the nation's eighth largest goat producer, the goat herd is only 84,600 and shrinking, reports the Kansas City Star.

Much of the country's goat demand comes from immigrant populations, particularly from Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Goat meat is a popular holiday dish in many Hispanic homes. It may be a rare sight in American butcher shops, but goat is the most widely consumed meat in the rest of the world, according to the New York Times.

The low-fat, high-protein meat is stronger than most beef without approaching the wild flavor of something like deer. Even chefs at high-end restaurants specializing in seasonal and sustainable food have been joining the goat boom. Many of those favor cabrito, young animals with a more tender flavor.

Increased demand has been a boon for goat producers, according to the Texas AgriLife Extension Service. Average prices have climbed from $1.19 per pound in 2008 to $1.70 in 2010.

"There were a lot of goats last week that brought over $2 a pound [at auction]," Benny Cox, sheep and goat sales manager at the Producer's Livestock Auction in San Angelo, Texas, told the Houston Chronicle. "The goat market's higher than I've ever seen it, and I've been here 40 years."

Despite the price increases, the United States remains a net goat importer. According to Terry Hankins, editor and publisher of Goat Rancher magazine and a goat farmer in Mississippi, one of the biggest reasons that the U.S. goat supply has yet to meet demand is a cultural bias among traditional ranchers.

"Right now there's kind of a stigma on goat production. It's hard to get cattle and sheep people to raising goats," he says. "People think of them as eating tin cans and that type of thing."

Goats can be stars in marginal pasture land where cattle might be more difficult to raise. Their famous ability to eat anything from thistle to hats is well-earned, and they are traditionally used to clear land of noxious weeds in advance of more sensitive cattle.

Some cities in the West will even lease goats to control brush for wildfire protection, Hankins said.

Their reputation for being ornery has a basis in reality, too, however, and the difficulty associated with containing the animals could be a barrier to large-scale goat production.

"The bad part is that they're really smart," says Zweede-Tucker, "which means that typical barbed-wire fences are ineffective. It's a back scratcher to them."