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Goat: The other red meatHILLSBORO, Mo. (AP)--In a land of swine and steak, Tom Mueller sees another meat on the horizon. The 38-year-old farming entrepreneur stands at the edge of one of his fields, looking out at a herd of goats as the animals graze on the spring-green grass and their newly born kids cavort and tumble. "You try to do something that's about the future," he said. "I love the cows. Don't get me wrong, and the goats are tough. But they're more money." These days they mean much more money. Though goat isn't a traditional meat in most American communities, the country's demand for it has shot up in the past decade, largely because of growing immigrant communities where goat is a common protein. "It's the No. 1 consumed meat in the world," said Scott Hollis, a goat specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "It's very popular--except here." But farmers around the country are starting to fill the growing niche demand and could be broadening the market in the process. Joining farmers across the country, Mueller has started raising goats for meat, or "meat goats," helping push total goat numbers up nationwide to more than 3 million this year from about 2.5 million in 2002. About 80 percent of those are meat goats. In Missouri alone, the meat goat industry grew by nearly 200 percent between 2002 and 2007, and meat and dairy goats combined are the state's fastest-growing livestock sector. The state now has the country's eighth-largest goat herd with almost 95,000 goats. Goat is especially popular with Muslim, Hispanic and some Asian communities, particularly around certain holidays, such as Greek Easter, which was May 4, Cinco de Mayo, and the end of Ramadan, which comes in the fall. Until recently, though, it was difficult to find American goat meat. If shoppers found goat in stores, it was likely to be imported frozen from New Zealand or Australia, the world's largest exporter of goat meat. That is starting to change as American farmers get into the meat goat biz--which, as it turns out, doesn't require all that much. Goats aren't expensive to buy and don't need nearly the land that larger livestock does. That means more small-scale "hobby farmers" have gotten into the business as word of new demand has spread. "We just wanted something that wasn't so hard on us," said Bill Vassalli, who retired to a farm in Marble Hill, Mo., and is now an officer with the Missouri Meat Goat Producers Association. "If you have a bucket of feed, they'll come to you." For these new American meat goat farmers, the learning curve has been steep. Not only have they had to learn the idiosyncrasies of the animals, they've also had to figure out how to market them. Most American groceries have yet to catch on to goat meat--which producers tout as tasty and lean--and for goat farmers, that has meant going door to door from one small ethnic grocery or restaurant to the next, selling their product. "There's still not a defined market," Hollis explained. "A lot of it has been an educational process, and we're far from perfecting this." But they're getting closer. On the American Meat Goat Association website, for example, there's a guide for producers listing all the goat-consuming ethnic groups, their goat-centric holidays and the size goat they prefer. "A lot of people need to tailor their breeding practice around when these ethnic groups want (the meat) and how big they want them," Hollis said, adding, "It doesn't do you any good to raise goats if you're not giving (consumers) what they want at the right time." Mueller has taken his operation, called Dry Creek Ranch, one step further. Last year, he partnered with Muhammad Qayyum of American Halal Meats and now sends his goats to Qayyum's slaughtering facility in New Haven, where the animals are killed according to Muslim practices. Now stores in St. Louis and Columbia, Mo., sell fresh, halal meat for the Muslim communities. (Halal refers to food produced in accordance with Muslim law.) "It's grown here, it's fresh from here, and you're getting it two days slaughtered," Mueller said. Mueller, not a farmer by trade or birth, moved to Hillsboro from the Atlanta area, where he was a construction contractor and publisher, among other things. Now he raises cattle, produce and chicken, and also sells eggs, but meat goats are the bulk of his growing farm business. By his counting, he's the largest meat goat producer in Missouri. With 2,200 goats at peak capacity, Mueller is now down to about 400 goats, not including about 60 new kids. Many he lost to illness or coyotes, but most of them were sold--300 in the last two weeks alone. He is now in the process of replenishing his herd. Raising goats is tough, he says. The animals require more maintenance than cattle and are prone to disease. But, he says, he doesn't regret his decision to get into the goat game. "You have your ups and downs," he says. "You have to be in it for the long haul. But I knew there was the demand." 6/23/08 Date: 6/19/08 Advertisement
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