Profit Margins For Goat Farmers Up By 30 Per Cent
The profit margins for small-scale goat farmers have gone up by an average of 30 per cent following the intervention of the Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth programme (ZAGP) to address marketing challenges along the goat value chain.
ZAGP is a Government initiative funded by the European Union to help create a fair trading platform for small-scale goat farmers and butcheries to ensure that they extract maximum value from their animals.
ZAGP programme team leader Newton Chari told The Herald that 2 309 goats weighing 25 306 kilogrammes have been sold by 683 farmers through the direct marketing approach and generating US$78 618 as of October 2022. Said Chari:
This direct marketing has significantly pushed up profit margins for farmers to reach an average of 30 per cent compared to farm gate prices and sales through intermediaries or middlemen.
Prior to adopting the direct meat marketing system, the project boasted a total of 1 500 butcheries in Harare and Bulawayo that worked with the farmers giving them targeted meat quantities to supply in some kind of contract arrangement.
From there another 528 butcheries that needed weekly quantities of 19 502kg of goat meat also joined the fray.
ZAGP is working with goat farmers’ associations established in 20 districts to supply meat and meat products directly to independent licensed butcheries.
The programme has 10 000 registered farmers working in formalised ward and district groupings known as goat producers’ business associations.
Chari said the demand for goat meat far outweighed the supply and urged farmers to migrate from informal sales to the direct marketing strategy.
