May 31, 2004

Rising Demand For Goat Meat In US State 

Members of US state Iowa's rising ethnic population are creating a new market for goat meat, and farmers are stepping in to meet it.

Hispanic residents are creating the biggest demand, according to officials with the newly formed Iowa Meat Goat Association. But immigrants from other parts of Latin America, Sudan and other African countries, Bosnia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East are also helping create the market.

The Meat Goat Association, formed six months ago, already has a membership of 65 producers, said Eric Finch of State Center, the association's secretary.

Finch inadvertently got into the goat meat business when he and his wife got a nanny goat to nurse some orphaned lambs. Some Hispanic workers at a local hog operation bought the young goats, known as kids, for meat.

"It just mushroomed from there,'' Finch said.

Finch said 90 percent of the 350 Boer goats he sold last year were bought by Hispanic customers from Marshalltown. But he also sells goats to people from Des Moines, Perry and Tama.

The Hispanic customers buy the goats live at 40 to 60 pounds, Finch said, one to 10 head at a time. Most butcher the goats themselves for high school graduation parties, wedding receptions, holidays or for a cookout during nice weather.

Finch said he had to turn customers away last year because he ran out of goats to sell.

Jeff Yearington of Carbon, another association director, said he sells most of his meat goats to Sudanese immigrants who now live in Omaha.

The Sudanese immigrants also buy their goats live and slaughter the animals themselves, Yearington said.

"They say we Americans waste too much,'' Yearington said. "They like the stomachs and intestines, too.''

Yearington said $1.10 a pound live is the lowest price he has received for his meat goats. The most he has earned is $2.79 a pound slaughter weight from a processor in Chicago who supplies goat meat to the Islamic population there.

Finch sells goats live off his farm for about $1.50 a pound. That is the equivalent of $60 to $80 a head.

"It's an excellent business for us,'' he said. "We're looking to expand so that someday we can support ourselves full-time with the goat business. As long as the ethnic population in Iowa continues to expand, I don't see any downside to it.''