The National Sheep and Goats Development Association Of Nigeria (NASHGODAN) has said it is set to begin the Goat Farmers Economic Advancement Trust (G-FEAT).
In a report made available to LEADERSHIP by the General Secretary of the association, Comrade Mohammed k. Adam, he said the G-FEAT shall employ a field officer and working staff to make sure the vision is aggressively pursued
According to him “for a start we want to register about 3,000 serious goat farmers cooperatives per abattoir. These goat farmers will build their own standard abattoir in their state to slaughter their goats. We will franchise our meat and contract about 200 butcheries within the state capitals, local government headquarters and some urban towns along the high ways.
Comrade Adam said “We have realised that goat farming can be a serious business if we organise ourselves. We want to develop a goat breeding stock of about 500,000 female goats among ourselves per state/abattoir. Goats can belong to an individual who wishes to organize his business and follow our standard not to allow animals roaming on the streets. Very soon we will advocate for a law compelling the tagging of animals to control theft. However, we all sign that we will market our goat meats and by-products together.”.
The secretary noted that only butchers that can sell over 500kg of meat per week will be contracted.
He noted that using this model, they will have to slaughter 7,000 to 10,000 a week in big states like Kano, Lagos, Oyo, Portharcourt, Kaduna, Bauchi, Kwara, Niger and the rest of them, noting that however, if they do not have adequate breeding stock, they will run out of slaughter stock soon after commencing.
“This is why we are calling all our individual and corporate members to increase their goats to 100 minimum at the beginning of 2017 by each corporate farm and cooperative groups. That way we can guarantee ourselves the commencement of slaughtering at the middle of 2018.
The general secretary noted that the programme of the association is for persons who are interested in commercialising and building the goat industry, adding that “The programme is expected to encourage the upgrade of 100 does (female goats) and 10 Bucks (male goats breeders) for each cooperative group of 20 persons as well as in each registered corporate farms.
He noted that to make this possible “we have identified the potential uptakers of the milk and as linkages to markets being one of the objectives of the association, we are working towards having profitable up takers for the produced kids live or processed.
The comrade revealed that goat milk is used by cosmetic industry in the making of soaps, creams and shampoos as well as milk processing companies that uses the milk.
