Meat goat production and marketing.

Production opportunities, management strategies, and marketing options for meat goats in the United States are reviewed in this manuscript. The basis for any expansion must be goat production systems that are biologically and economically sustainable, meeting both producer and consumer needs. Meat goats historically have been kept for brush control. Their use to control noxious plants and in vegetation management will continue to be their primary role in the future. Meat goats are rarely the primary animal production enterprise in the United States, but they are becoming increasingly important contributors to the income of many producers. Meat goat marketing is highly unstructured in the United States, yet prices are generally higher on a per unit of weight basis than other red meat-producing species. Efforts to organize marketing have had only limited success. Over 90% of the world's goats are in developing countries. Goats are increasingly important in these countries as subsistence food producers. Production systems range from goats being a part of nomadic multispecies herds on arid desert rangelands, in agropastoral production systems, to goats being the primary animal enterprise in smallholder farming systems.