Australian goat meat exports to China surge by 4,000 per cent in a year

China’s appetite for Australian goat meat is growing rapidly with exports rising more than 4,000 per cent since the beginning of the year.

Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) reports China took just one per cent of Australia’s goat meat exports in 2022, but has since increased its share to 20 per cent.

In the year to October 2022 that equated to just 135 tonnes, which had grown to 5,587 tonnes by the end of October this year. 

It has made China Australia’s second largest market for goat meat behind the United States.

MLA global supply analyst Tim Jackson said the number of goats slaughtered in Australia had risen by almost 50 per cent since last year and most of that increase had gone to China.

Supply up, prices down

Pastoralist Association of the West Darling president and Broken Hill grazier, Terry Smith, said the number of goats on his property had doubled but export prices had dropped to a 10-year low so he was pleased to see some competition in the export market from China.

“Going back a few years the American market was where the where the big money was and that probably pushed a few other markets out of the equation,” Mr Smith said.

“Now the price has come back it’s quite affordable for overseas customers so any additional markets to try and ease backlog and make the processing job a little bit easier we would certainly welcome for producers in this neck of the woods.”

Cheap source of protein for China

Mr Jackson said China needed protein to feed its massive population and goat made a good substitute for mutton, which was why there has been a sudden surge in demand from that country according to MLA’s Tim Jackson.

“Australia already exports a lot of mutton to China and there are lots of meals where you could either use mutton or goat,” Mr Jackson said.

“So a combination of the [goat meat] price coming off and increased awareness of the availability of Australian goat to importers in China and consumers, has meant that there’s been really quite rapid increase in imports and consumption.”

He believes now the market has been cracked goat meat is likely to remain a part of a growing market in China.

Australian’s still not convinced

Domestically Australians don’t eat a lot of goat mainly because the quality of the wild goats hasn’t been as good as lamb and beef.

To improve the eating quality, farmers have started breeding Boer goats and raising them on farm.

But the price they get when they sell direct to the abattoir for consumption, or over the hooks, in Australia, is also low.

It has plummeted from a peak of 920c/kg last June to just 193c/kg.

Boer goat breed Marlene Andrews said it was not the lowest prices she had seen during her 15 years in the business but she would prefer a price around five to seven dollars/kg.

She said her biggest concern was the lack of processing facilities.

“We just can’t get into any processing plants, not just in NSW but the processors in Victoria have said they’ll no longer do any farm to plate processing because they don’t have capacity,” she said.

Mr Smith said it was a problem for the rangeland goat suppliers as well.

“It’s common to wait up to six weeks to be able to supply to an abattoir,” he said.

“With the bottlenecks at the processing end it makes it quite hard to predict when and where you can get your goats if you’re going to direct to the processor.”