No kidding goats popular

By EDWARD HEGSTROM
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Jamaicans eat their goats curried or barbecued, which they call "jerk."

Some Pakistanis use goat legs to make soup.

And along the Rio Grande, locals have been eating cabrito, or barbecued goat kid, since before Sam Houston was born.

While Americans tend to think of meat as coming from a cow or a pig, much of the rest of the world eats goat. Now the rest of the world is moving to America, and ranchers are beginning to recognize a lucrative trend.

"The consumption of goat has increased dramatically over the last decade," said John Sykes, assistant general manager of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. In line with that, the livestock show has focused more on goats every year, he said.

Just how substantially that market has increased is not clearly understood, because the federal government does not keep readily available statistics on goat-meat consumption.

One expert estimates that the U.S. market for goat increased by 20 percent from 2002 to 2003. Americans consumed 43.4 million pounds of goat last year, according to the expert, Marvin Shurley, a West Texas goat rancher who heads the American Meat Goat Association. He bases his figure on import and slaughter numbers.

"It's growing like crazy," Shurley said. And the market continues to grow despite the fact that goat meat sells for twice as much as beef and it is consumed mostly by recently arrived immigrants who are not exactly swimming in discretionary income.

At places like El Hidalguense, an authentic Mexican restaurant on Long Point, customers gobble up the cabrito at $17.99 a plate. Goat is also a big seller at the halal markets in Southwest Houston, which cater to Middle Easterners and South Asians looking for animals slaughtered according to Islamic rules.

"I sell a lot of goat, even though it's expensive," said Iqbal Khan, manager at Awami Market, a store on Bissonnet catering to Pakistani and Indian customers.

"It's ethnicity that is driving the market," agrees Kyle Eckert, a Texas Cooperative Extension goat expert based in San Angelo.

And it's not just the market for goat that is being transformed by immigrants in North America. As the emergence of grocery chains like Houston's Fiesta has shown, there is money available for those who can spot the changing trends and target immigrant eaters (unlike most grocery chains, Fiesta has stocked goat since the day its first store opened, according to a spokesman).

One recent study in Canada found that milk consumption there has remained stable, even as the population increased. The study noted that some of Canada's growth has come in the form of immigration from China and India, where people don't drink much cow's milk.

A researcher noted that Indians do like water buffalo milk, which led him to seriously suggest raising water buffaloes in Canada -- though special provisions would have to be made to get the heat-loving animals through the Canadian winter.

Raising goats in Texas is not quite such a challenge. They thrive in shrubby areas better than in grassland, which makes them perfect for West and South Texas, where they have been raised for centuries. The Lone Star State raises more than half the goats in America.

Angora goats used to be raised for mohair. But ranchers have switched to the Boer goat, which is raised for meat. Goats are easier to raise than cows. Most important, the market for goat meat just goes up and up.

"There's never been a market downturn," said Shurley.

So why don't more cow farmers switch to goats? Shurley says it's because some ranchers are stubborn and insist on doing things the way their daddies did.

"A lot of what happens in the cattle industry has more to do with tradition than sound financial management," he said.

Most goat ranchers are urban transplants with no prior experience in agriculture, according to Shurley, citing statistics from his own organization.

The emergent industry is still adjusting to the challenges. By coincidence, a number of Islamic, Jewish and Christian (Eastern and Western) holidays come early in the year, which can lead to goat shortages. Some industry Web sites post calendars of religious holidays to help producers time their breeding.

Some producers propose mounting a marketing campaign for goats, which would be particularly difficult because it would have to target so many different ethnicities and religions.

Shurley rejects the idea.

"We're not producing nearly enough to meet the demand," he said. "Why do we need ads?"