Goat farming makes comeback after 80s boom went bust

By Glenys Christian

Over the gate

Anyone who believes in picking winners and favouring one area of the economy over another should pay an obligatory visit to Pokeno.

Here, just south of Auckland in a small rural town, the motorway bypasses most of what remains of one of the agricultural stars of the 1980s.

Goats were all the rage then. Anyone who could catch a feral animal in the bush was at least $150 better off.

Once on a farm, that goat was much more valuable - courtesy of tax breaks that meant it could be written down to just $6.

On the back of these incentives, and speculative talk about overseas demand for mohair, cashmere and then cashgora, came the goat floats.

Sometimes there were two announced in one week, and no expense was spared for the launches.

A large warehouse was built at Pukekohe to handle the fibre, but with the sharemarket crash and tax incentives removed, goats were suddenly out of favour.

Some farmers got out while livestock prices were still inflated, and some caught the last payments out of Europe before manufacturers went under or moved to less-costly fibre options.

A few who hung on to the bitter end released their animals back into the bush, creating an environmental headache.

John Woodward was there through the high times as a goat farmer and manager of the Pukekohe warehouse, but he always believed there was an industry under all the hype.

He still collects up and markets much of the goat fibre produced in New Zealand, selling forward container lots of mohair to Europe and pouncing on Chinese markets for cashmere when they are in the mood to buy.

But his day-to-day business is running Mohair Fibres at the southern end of Pokeno's main street.

He entertains busloads of visitors out for the day from northern North Island cities by shearing a goat and cheerfully modelling garments made from the fibre.

Mr Woodward believes goats are at last proving their worth, largely thanks to the introduction of Texan and South African genetics.

Fleece weights have improved, and competing producers from the animals' original homelands have wound back their operations.

Instead of the $5 or $6 a kilogram mohair producers were receiving a couple of years ago, prices now are more like double that, thanks to renewed interest from the fashion industry.

Goatmeat, given the name Chevron that never really stuck, is now returning an additional $2.50 a kilogram to the farmer, with healthy sales here and overseas.

So with meaty Boer goat genes again incorporated into their flocks, farmers can receive $25 to $35 for a cull animal which may have produced $60 to $70 of fibre a year through its life.

Compare these returns to those for sheep, add in goats' appetite for weeds and the resulting reduction in chemical costs, and the comparison looks very rosy indeed.

But this time round, any growth will rightly be driven by returns alone.

* Glenys Christian can be contacted on e-mail at glenys@farmindex.co.nz