These women aren’t kidding around — they’re changing the landscape of goat farming

It’s no secret that agriculture in Queensland is still dominated by men, but in the goat industry women are bucking the trend.

Secretary of the Queensland Goat Producers Incorporated (QGoat) and Mackay goat producer Kylie Leahy was raised alongside cattle on her family property, but said she has an “unreasonable” fear of livestock.

Ms Leahy joined forces with producers across Queensland to create QGoat and she said women outnumber men in both membership and leadership positions.

“I would say it’s an industry skewed towards women, we want to get this done and we want to see it become a success,” she said.

“Even the associations we have with universities, we’ve got quite a few researchers who are looking at the goat industry, and you would be surprised at the amount of them that are women.”

Ms Leahy said there were quite a few husband-and-wife teams in her association, but in many cases it was the wives doing the majority of animal husbandry.

Goats smaller and easier to work with

Juanita Bosel, owner of Bush Lemon Farm, just outside Mackay, raises goats, cattle and sheep, and says goats are easier to handle, purely because of their size.

“From a handling point of view, an animal husbandry point of view, goats are a lot easier for women to handle,” Ms Bosel said.

“It’s good to see women involved and it’s good to see goats coming to the forefront of people’s minds when they’re looking for their red meat choices for the week.”

Ms Leahy said in comparison to cattle she is capable of wrangling goats all on her own.

“They can be cantankerous and ornery, and they can be extremely loving, and they’re small so they’re manageable,” she said.

“If I have a buck that’s playing up, I can manage it myself and I’m only a small woman. I can do that.”

Industry ‘movers and shakers’

University of Queensland PH candidate Kathryn Dawson has been researching the effects of internal parasites in goat meat.

She said said while men tended to dominate large-scale properties out west, she mostly dealt with women managers in the north and south-east of of Queensland.

“I’ve found women tend to be more open to change and adapting new techniques or management strategies that better some of these businesses that are more intensive, such as stud breeders,” Ms Dawson said.

“Potentially that’s why I’ve had more interaction with them, because they’re quite interested in the research and finding new ways to improve their business.”

In the agricultural research industry, Ms Dawson says she’s seeing women rise through the ranks and female retention rates increasing.

“I think slowly, but surely, we’re seeing more girls and women come through university and into the ag industry,” she said.

“It’s definitely still male dominated, we’re still a minority in that space, but I feel so excited by the fact there’s this slow change of women coming into the industry.”

Raising goats in the tropics

While primarily suited to western Queensland, tropical goat producers are adamant on the industry can find success in the north, despite a range of obstacles.

Ms Bosel said the high humidity and rainfall made it hard to manage parasites but she had learned to use goats to her advantage.

“We’re trying to use the goats in our whole system, so we rotate them through our paddocks along with our cattle,” she said.

“The cattle help us manage the worm issue and the goats help us manage the weeds.”

But she says it is worth the challenge.

“We can’t keep enough goat meat in stock, it sells out consistently first at every market that we do.”