Background

About one tenth of the goat population of Africa is found in Ethiopia. Goats contribute to the rural economy and provide livelihoods to the poor, supplementing their food with nutritious meat and milk. Meat from small ruminants represents approximately one fifth of the meat eaten in sub-Saharan Africa. Goats also provide fiber and other by-products such as hide and skin and offal and offer sources of cash income to smallholder farmers. Goats also have the potential to become an increasingly valuable foreign exchange earner. Expansion of the human population, coupled with increasing urbanisation, is resulting in higher demands for meat, yet increases in livestock production are lagging behind the corresponding increases in human populations. There are thus considerable opportunities to tap further the potential of the small ruminant for the expanding international markets.

Ethiopia is currently benefiting from foreign currency achieved through export of goat meat, especially to Middle East countries. But international markets for meat are becoming more competitive and livestock producers need to meet quality standards laid down by importing countries both for live animals and for meat. The Livestock Marketing Authority (LMA) of Ethiopia recently assessed the needs of importing countries and reported that research is needed on ways to attain higher animal weights at a younger age, to achieve acceptable fat content of the carcass and acceptable meat quality, and to solve a darkening problem of the carcass observed in highland goats.