Farmers Urged To Venture Into Goat Farming
There is a high demand for goat meat in the country and farmers have been urged to venture into commercial goat farming to satisfy market demand.
Value Chain Alliance for Livestock Upgrading and Empowerment (VALUE) project team leader, Newton Chari told The Sunday News that Harare and Bulawayo markets consume about 50 to 60 per cent of goat meat.
Chari revealed that over 400 butcheries have expressed a willingness to access goat meat.
In both Harare and Bulawayo, the demand for goat meat was “excessively huge” to a point of outweighing supply, Chari observed. He said:
VALUE is promoting more direct meat marketing, which is influenced by how Harare and Bulawayo markets have emerged to consume about 50 to 60 per cent of goat meat.
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We have also observed consignments stock supplied by the Goat Producers Business Associations selling quickly and we are still working towards supplying more butcheries.
Chari said the advantage of rearing goats is that they are easily adaptive given the seasonal changes being experienced.
The VALUE project is part of a European Union-funded Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Programme (ZAGP) that seeks to address challenges within the country’s livestock sector.
An indigenous goat expert, Isaac Mpofu said the demand for goat meat was increasing as people wanted something different from chicken, beef or pork. He said:
Demand for goat meat is high and there is a lot of potential for the growth of the market.
Goat breeding projects and attendant value addition interventions will go a long way towards ensuring broad-based empowerment, wealth creation and lifting millions out of poverty within our society.
A goat farmer in Kezi, Florence Siziba said goats not only provide meat but milk that is more nutritious compared to cow milk. She said:
There is more to goats than just meat. Goat milk is thicker and creamier than cow’s milk or plant milk and has more nutrients that may offer health benefits.
If you research, you will find out that the chemical characteristics of goat milk can be used to manufacture a wide variety of products, including fluid beverage products (low fat, fortified, or flavoured) and UHT (ultra-high temperature) milk, fermented products such as cheese, buttermilk or yoghurt, frozen products such as ice cream or frozen yoghurt and butter among others.
Siziba claimed she was working on the value addition of goat milk to create soaps, lotions and creams for all-natural skincare.
