Regional Goat Production and Marketing Project

Regional Goat Production and Marketing Project

Summary

(Current entry date 04/12/05) Plans are to host the regional goat conference and educational materials development conference on August 1-4, 2005 at Langston University and Oklahoma City. Final plans are underway for the Prairie View A&M University Goat Day on May 14, the April Tennessee State University Goat Day, and the May Goat Day at Langston University.

Kentucky State University employeed a Livestock Animal Scientist on January 18, 2005, who joined the collaborative team. The March 17 “Third Thursday” Goat Day with an attendance of 150. The program included marketing and grading, goat care and kidding, the Scrapie Program, goat USAIP identification issues, goat dairy issues and milk/cheese safety, current health issues in Kentucky, practical applications for goat selection for improved genetics, growth, and performance, a goat marketing issues producer listening forum, and hands-on sessions.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Objective 1. Agricultural professionals and paraprofessionals accept meat and dairy goats as sustainable farm enterprises for small farmers in the region. Upon accepting goats as a viable, sustainable enterprise, they will initiate farmer education and hands-on demonstration programs in their counties on sustainable goat production including feeds/forages, breeding programs, parasite control, environmental aspects, and economics. They will facilitate efforts to develop sustainable systems for goat production, marketing, and value-added goat products. They will facilitate efforts to develop farmer cooperatives, goat associations, marketing associations, and to identify potential markets for goats and goat products.

Objective 2. Agricultural professionals and paraprofessionals target educational programs to nontraditional clientele. Because many goat producers are nontraditional farmers including Middle Eastern, Hispanic, African American, women, youth (4-H and FFA), religious groups, small and limited-resource farmers, educational programs for producers must include outreach and developing materials for nontraditional clientele. In developing and delivering educational programs, the professional must become sensitive to social and environmental issues as well as the economic and production aspects of the goat industry. As a result, the professional strengthens social and outreach skills and acceptance leading to inclusion of diverse groups.

Objective 3. Agricultural professionals and farmers from across the Southern region will share expertise to develop multi-state, multidisciplinary teams (including 1890, 1862, and farmers). These teams will provide cross-state educational programming in sustainable goat production/marketing systems. They will develop midterm and long term collaborative initiatives to strengthen and continue their educational efforts. Agricultural professionals will broaden their scope of activities and become “system thinkers”.

Target 1. Each collaborator will conduct at least one agricultural professional training workshops for 1890 and 1862 Extension staff in their respective states. Farmers, farmer mentors, researchers, USDA, state Department of Agriculture, teachers and other agricultural professionals will be included. The educational workshops to include sustainable goat production systems, forages, diseases, parasites, breeds and breeding systems, environmental concerns, economics and marketing in the educational workshops. The training programs will include hands-on demonstrations and farmer educators. Each state will host at least one listening forum (as a part of the workshops) for farmers and Extension staff to identify the major Extension Agent and farmer training needs, educational materials needed, and research needed on sustainable goat production/marketing systems. Over 1,000 agricultural professionals and farmer mentors in the Southern region will receive training on sustainable goat production/marketing systems and over 400 farmers will provide input through the listening forums. At least one training workshop will include a session on outreach needs for diverse producers/consumers including sensitivity and bilingual considerations.
Target 2. The collaborative team will host one regional meeting to include agricultural professionals and goat producers from each state, plus invited participants who are involved in sustainable goat production systems. These participants, via a facilitated meeting, will identify regional goat education strengths and weaknesses, existing educational materials, potential collaborative multi-state, multi-disciplinary educational and research efforts, and new educational materials that need to be developed or adapted. This information will be used in developing educational initiatives, programming, and new materials. Existing and newly developed goat educational and research materials will be shared among collaborators for use in their Extension programming and training sessions. These materials to include sustainable production, marketing, parasite and disease management, breeds and breeding, forages, environmental concerns, and outreach needs.

Accomplishments/Milestones

(As of April 12, 2005) To date, participants in the educational programs number 150.

Collaborators: