Live Animal and Carcass Measurements of Meat Goats: A USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Project

Introduction The meat goat industry was the most rapidly growing livestock category in the U.S. in the early 2000s, but numbers of meat goats in the U.S. have slightly declined since 2008 while the tonnages of imported frozen goat meat from Australian and New Zealand have continued to increase (Pinkerton and McMillin, 2013, 2012). The meat goat industry is highly unstructured compared with other livestock industries and the few studies about market structure have not linked production practices with live goat characteristics and consumer surveys have not been related to goat meat characteristics. Specific information has been needed about each segment in the goat meat industry so that potential common market and product linkages can be identified and relative product values in each segment can be distinguished. A group of investigators submitted a proposal to the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture grant program in 2009 that was not funded. Additional investigators from Texas, Georgia, and Alabama were added and the project was funded in 2010. The project purpose is to identify production practices and product traits at each segment of the meat goat industry to increase the net economic benefits and productivity of meat goat producers. The research objectives are to determine purchase and consumption patterns for goat meat through a national survey of consumers; to evaluate live, carcass, and meat traits of kid and yearling goats representative of meat goats being marketed in the U.S.; and to survey producers on production and marketing practices needed to increase net margins and productivity within the next 5 years. This information from the multistate investigation will allow cohesion in communication among the production, processing, and retail market sectors and integrate research and outreach activities the information to goat producer and industry audiences.