Fresh goat meat now is available in area supermarkets and convenience stores, thanks to a marketing program spearheaded by a North Carolina Cooperative Extension agent.

The Franklin County Goat Producers Cooperative’s goat meat display at a local grocer’s “fiesta” promotion in Franklinton in early July was met with great interest.

Goat meat, increasingly in demand as the Triangle’s population diversifies, is especially popular among Latinos, says Martha Mobley, agricultural extension agent with the Franklin County Center of North Carolina Cooperative Extension. About 500 Hispanic families live in Franklin County, where the co-op sells fresh goat meat to a restaurant and at least two convenience stores.

Previously, goat meat to meet the Triangle’s growing demand was brought in frozen from New Zealand.

“It’s selling well,” she says. “We make a new shipment every week.”

The product launch, complete with brand-new gold package labels, is not the co-op’s only activity.

“We’re providing educational programs for producers on the certification process all summer,” says Mobley, who helped organize the 40-member co-op.

For certification, goat meat producers must successfully pass a six-week, multi-course curriculum developed by North Carolina A&T State University, which provided a $18,000 grant to establish the educational and marketing cooperative. Also involved are N.C. State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Cooperative Extension’s Franklin County Center, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Topics include a nutrition foraging and management course taught by Dr. Jean-Marie Luginbuhl, who initiated the meat goat program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Animal Sciences Department at N.C. State several years ago.

Also offered are courses in goat reproduction, diseases and herd health, safe handling of vaccinations and goat grading.

Course graduates are named as Franklin County Certified Goat Producer Cooperators and receive a metal roadside sign for their farm to that effect.

“We wanted to take raising animals one step further for our producers, to add value to their product. One of the greatest things about this project is getting farmers to work together for that common goal: raising quality goats for the public,” Mobley says.

And the word is getting out.

“We just keep getting calls from people who want to sign up for the quality assurance certification program,” she says. Although courses continued through the summer, the next full certification training won’t start until January, Mobley says.

“This is the first high-quality fresh goat meat marketing program in North Carolina,” she says. “This pilot project will help determine alternative agricultural enterprises for Franklin County farmers.”

For information, call Martha Mobley, agricultural extension agent in Franklin County, 919.496.3344, or e-mail her at martha_mobley@ncsu.edu.

—Art Latham