A $15 million factory for processing goat and cows' milk is planned for Oamaru next year, aimed at making North Otago the centre of a new goats' milk export industry targeting the Asian market.
The project, which would initially employ up to 20 people, is being driven by an Oamaru-based
company, Dairy Goat Innovations, and funded by a Chinese investor.
In the North Island, the established Dairy Goat Co-operative has export earnings of $40 million from 70 farmers milking 26,000 goats. It recently opened its own $16 million dairy factory in Hamilton to process 10 million litres a year into milk powder.
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry projections in the 1980s were for a national herd of more than 100,000 goats, but today there are only 35,000.
