Regional Goat Production and Marketing Project

Regional Goat Production and Marketing Project

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”.
Approaches and Methods
1. Each collaborator will conduct at least two 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. Collaborators will be available to travel for cross-state, multi-disciplinary educational programs, as needed. 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.
2. The collaborative team will host two regional meetings to include four to six agricultural professionals and goat producers from each state, plus invited participants from other 1890 and 1862 institutions 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. New collaborative efforts will extend the project indefinitely. 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

1. Meeting at Oklahoma State University August 1-4, 2005 of the Regional Planning Group, including farmers, veterinarians, county extension agents, and extension specialists. There were 38 participants from the six collaborating states.
A. The Regional Planning Group identified the following to be accomplished during the upcoming year.
1. Oklahoma State University, through the KiKi de la Garza Goat Institute, agreed to be responsible for a “clearing house of information” that is accessible to the region. This has been initiated, via their website, and is monitored by Terry Gipson, Steve Hart, and others.
2. Kentucky State University agreed to be responsible for gathering research-based and reliable information, screening the information for its use in the Southern Region, and forwarding it to Langston. Kenneth Andries assumed responsibility for this task. He devotes hours each month to reviewing and researching articles, then forwards them to Langston for use in the clearing house.
3. Meetings of the Regional Planning Group are to be held at Kentucky State University in 2006 and Prairie View A&M University in 2007.
4. The group discussed outreach mechanisms for diverse clientele, the need for more producer meetings, problems associated with professionals not accepting goats as a commercial farm enterprise, and the need for agent and veterinarian training.
5. The group identified parasite management to be a priority area.
6. The University of Kentucky shared a Goat Production and Marketing video.
7. Kentucky State University shared a Goat Foot/Hoof Care video.
8. Langston University announced their upcoming Master Goat Herder web-based curriculum. This curriculum was completed in the fall of 2005.
9. The group identified disaster preparedness as an important issue.

B. The meeting at Oklahoma State University included training on: dairy goats, dairy goat milk processing and value-added, SARE-PDP Program Objectives, goat fencing, and Langston’s meat goat research activities.

2. Goat workshops and field days were held at Kentucky State University on March 2006 and October 2005 with 285 participants.
3. Tennessee State University held a Goat Institute, March 2006, with 150 participants
4. Tennessee State University held a Goat Workshop, October, 2005 with 150 participants
5. Florida A&M University held an Animal Bioterrorism-Disaster Workshop, August 2005
6. Prairie View A&M University held a Small Farm Goat Workshop in 2005 with 100 in attendance
7. Langston University held its Annual Goat Institute in May 2005 with 100 in attendance.
8. Tennessee State University supported 2 Extension professionals to the National Small Farm Conference, October 2005.
9. At the Southern SAWG Conference in January 2006, goat programs were presented by Ken Andries, Kentucky State University and Steve Hart, Langston University. There were 250 attending the goat sessions, 920 attending the conference.
10.Kentucky State University hires a Hispanic Outreach Specialist in the Spring 2006 to assist with this and other projects.

Collaborators: