Delivery of Goat CoP Courses

Summary

1. Participation levels in the Goat Cost of Production workshop series were lower than desirable. Thirty six participants, 60% of the target of sixty, attended workshops in Bendigo, Dubbo, Longreach, Broken Hill, Toowoomba and Perth. Six of these were potential new entrants to the industry. The business-based content of the workshop appears to be less appealing to goat producers than does production-based content.
2. The data collected from participants in the workshops reflects the diversity in the goat industry. The majority of participants manage goats primarily for meat production with a small proportion managing goats for milk and fibre.
3. There appears to be a diversity of drivers for involvement in the industry. Some managers produce goats as their passion or hobby while for others the decision to manage goats is driven by a commercial imperative.
4. There is a diversity of production systems within the sample. In the rangelands, production systems include the opportunistic harvest of wild unconstrained (unfenced) goats, the harvest of constrained rangelands goats and the trading of constrained immature goats.