In Middle East the price of goat meat is going for $20/kg. In Angola there is high demand but few suppliers. The same applies to the rest of Southern Africa and in Zimbabwe the price of goat meat is $3/kg. So do you just raise normal goats or you need to get hybrid goats for success?
We cover below an article by one of the leading journalists from Zimbabwe, Hopewell Chin’ono, he is running one of the best goat farming projects in the country.
Hopewell Chin’ono
I run a goat breeding operation so I am going to talk about what I really know about and understand. One of the most effective ways of empowering the rural folk is to upgrade their goat breed.
Weight:
A Boer goat like the one below weighs 120kilograms live weight.The local Mashona goats weigh an average of 20 kilograms.When you cross a Mashona female goat and a Boer male, the product born out of the crossbreeding exercise will weigh around 60 kilograms. So there is a weight gain of 40 kilograms.
Cross-breading
If you cross the “crossbreed” goat and a Boer male, you will end up with a goat weighing 80 kilograms.If the government and the opposition really want to empower the rural folk, they could invest in one male goat for every Ward.A male goat can service 50 female goats inside 15 days.
Sales
So the national breed will be enhanced in terms of quality and the numbers increased too.Goat meat is sold at $3 per kilogram at wholesale level so it means that these rural folk can earn $180 from selling a crossbreed to butcheries as opposed to $60 if they had killed a Mashona goat.I sell my male boer goats for $500 each when they are 6 months old and a $1000 when they are 18 months old.
The government of the day can start a program and import the breeding stock from South African where I bought my initial breeding stock at $200 per female goat and $500 each for the male goats which were 20 months old.
Cost
The cost of Boer goats in Zimbabwe is very high because of the laws of supply and demand.As we speak, I am holding Money laid for goats that will be born next year.
Market
That is how bad the shortage is and with a proper government program, the rural folk can join in cutting the cake too and enhance their lives.
Big commercial famers drive to Chin’ono village to buy these Boer goats for their large-scale farms. If I had a big property I could have expanded but at the moment I am only doing it at my ancestral home.
Export Market
The Angolan Ambassador Pedro Hendrick Vaal Neto came to my village to look at the project and talk about exports.
It broke my heart when he said that he hope my government would give me land to expand the project. We could export these goats and earn foreign exchange. So there is a lot we can do!
