NELSON - More pastoral farmers should stock goats to meet the growing international demand for the meat, says a new member on the New Zealand Goat Council.
Ian Stuart, a Nelson farmer, was appointed to the council's new Buller, Nelson and Marlborough zone when the former southern region was divided twomonths ago.
He farms 1000ha of hilly Cable Bay with his wife, Barbara. They started goat farming in the late 1970s.
Mr Stuart says his 700-strong flock helps to contain gorse on their mixed-stock farm and is an important element in its profitability.
Along with their goats, the couple stock 1600 ewes and 60 breeding cows.
Mr Stuart says the goats save "thousands of dollars in spray and time" in terms of weed control.
"It would be difficult without them. We would be forced off by the gorse."
He started selling his cull animals for meat in the 1980s. Since then he has improved his herd and is now cashing in on goat meat worth between $2 and $2.60 a kilogram.
He suggests pastoral farmers can make goats 10 per cent of their stocking level at little extra cost.
In addition to the profits and weed control, goats graze well with other stock.
"People tend to concentrate on the fibre aspect of goats, and compare them in this aspect with sheep. They forget about the meat angle, and it is a profitable product," says Mr Stuart.
A council technical adviser, Garrick Batten of Brightwater, near Nelson, says the group aims to increase the profitability of goats to pastoral farmers.
The council has seven producer members and a Meat New Zealand appointee, he says.
It co-opts technical, processing and exporting advisers.
Mr Batten says there are not enough goats on New Zealand farms to supply the demands of international markets.
The profitable image of goat farming was tainted by the 1980s sharemarket crash.
This clobbered the industry, which had been used as an investment vehicle by financiers.
Mr Batten says the rising standard of living of ethnic groups in developed countries is driving much of the increase in demand.
New Zealand exports between 2000 and 2500 tonnes of processed meat each year and there are opportunities to improve on that.
