Queenstown to host first goats conference

The inaugural conference for goat farmers

The inaugural New Zealand Goats conference will be held at Rydges Hotel in Queenstown on the weekend of May 23-25.

This event is being hosted by the Federated Farmers goats industry group in conjunction with Meat Goat New Zealand and the New Zealand Boer Goat Breeders Association (Inc).

NZ Goats has recently been established by Mohair New Zealand (Inc) and Meat Goat New Zealand with the aim of adding value to the New Zealand goat sector.

While there remains much to rebuild and grow the goat meat and mohair industries, it should be remembered that goat meat leads global red meat consumption and that it has a lot to offer New Zealand red meat farming businesses.

The conference is aimed at both experienced goat farmers and those interested in looking further at the opportunities to increase profitability and spread risk that goat farming can offer.

To do this, there will be a number of activities, starting with a field trip on the Friday to an Angora goat farm and this will be followed by an informal social gathering that will provide an opportunity to mingle with goat farmers.

On the Saturday morning, the four organisations involved - Mohair NZ, NZ Boer Goat Breeders Association, Meat Goat NZ and NZ Goats - will hold their AGMs.

This will include a presentation, by Jeanette Maxwell, Federated Farmers Meat & Fibre Chair and National Board member, on the merits of a possible commodity levies act (CLA) application to raise funds to assist the group's work.

The afternoon will provide an opportunity to visit one of the country's most extensive high-country Boer goat farming properties and the day will conclude with the conference dinner at the Skyline Gondola restaurant.

The final event is the inaugural NZ Goats conference on the Sunday. The first part of the conference will involve topical presentations from speakers involved in different parts of the sector. The speakers include;

-Richard Shaw, a senior scientist at AgResearch

-Helen Darling of Darling & Associates

-Fiona Carruthers, Project Manager at Beef + Lamb New Zealand

-Richard Thorp, CEO of Lean Meats

The second part of the conference will offer the audience an opportunity to contribute to a discussion about the way forward for the sector in general - and NZ Goats in particular.

To obtain a registration form for this event or to find out more about the conference, contact Federated Farmers in the first instance; email dburt@fedfarm.org.nz, telephone 0800 FARMING (0800 327 646).