Ontario Goat Farming: Demanded but Challenging

I couldn’t say I had tasted goat’s milk before my trip to River’s Edge Goat Dairy. Now I am hooked. Lately, fresh goat milk and cheese have streamed in and out of my fridge. This all started on a bright sunny day in June, when my fellow researchers and I drove up to River’s Edge Goat Dairy to see their operation. As a small family-owned dairy farm, located just outside of Arthur, Ontario, they currently have 84 milk producing goats. We had the pleasure of being showed around by Will, who owns the farm with his partner, Katie.

 Goats at River's Edge Goat Dairy

The way Will treated his animals was what really stood out to me during our visit. You could tell how much Will loved the goats, referring to them by name and calling them his ‘girls’. The barn was well cleaned, with no smell at all. The goats had more than ample space. They could go inside and outside at their leisure. At first, I assumed their treatment of the animals, or ‘herd management’, was simply a result of goodwill and wanting to be kind to their animals. As it turned out, their herd management was just as much profit-motivated.

The economics of good herd management are perfectly summed up in a story Will told us of last year’s milking season. With the kidding season completed, the farm suddenly had many more females, and was ready for a successful milking season. However, what puzzled Will and Katie, was that they were in fact producing less milk than before the kidding season. More goats and less milk, it didn’t make sense. Eventually they figured out that the production had decreased because the animals were overcrowded.  It was a good lesson for them, as it showed them how their care of the goats is directly related to how economical their business is. There’s a lot of goat farms out there with over a thousand goats. However, if they can’t offer enough care to each animal or their infrastructure is not adequate to give them enough space, they are probably not making significant profits.

Being born and raised in Canada, I had not tried goat’s milk before this trip. However, for many immigrants, goat products are a dietary staple. Interestingly, River’s Edge Goat Dairy does not have a large customer base of new Canadians. However, with the increase of ethnic diversity in Canada, the demand for goat products is likely to increase. In our current ECVOntario research project at the University of Guelph, we have found that many Somali-Canadians love their goat meat (chevon or cabrito). For most Somalis, halal is preferred. So how does River’s Edge Goat farm and other farms hold up to these standards?  

In order to observe their religious practices, many Muslims will only eat food that is halal. However, the authenticity of halal is sometimes hard to verify since halal is relatively unregulated in Canada ¹. It was just in the last few months that sellers were required to state which organization certified their products halal ². Even with this new regulation, no government or religious body monitors what standards these certifiers have to stick to. Therefore, the trust of a halal certification really comes down to the trust between the seller and the consumer. This results in a knowledge gap; consumers often do not know the details of halal certifications and may doubt that it is genuinely halal. Therefore, relationships with farmers or business owners become essentially based on trust. 

Since much of the business for River’s Edge goat dairy comes from direct sales at the farm or markets, trust is enhanced. Though River’s Edge Goat Dairy is not officially certified by a halal certification body, Will tells us a few imams have unofficially certified their farm halal. He also tells us how many Muslims continue to come back for the farm’s animal products, because they have developed that trust. The abattoir where the farm’s animals are sent to if they are slaughtered for meat also has Imams there blessing the animals, which is also an important factor for meat to be halal. 

                                                                          

                                    University of Guelph Research Assistants in the Milking Room

As River’s Edge Goat farm is a dairy farm, their milking room is central to their operation. Twice a day, 86 goats flow in and out of this room. The goats are so used to this procedure that some even claim certain milking stations. Tubes are then attached to a goat’s udder to allow the milk to flow towards the storage tank, and within 40 seconds, your goat is milked! Milking is an art. Depending on which farmer is milking the goats on a given day, the amount of milk produced in a milking session can vary by tens of litres. One reason that goats may produce less milk is that if you do not fully dry out their udder in a given milking session, in the next milking session they will not produce as much milk. As Will explains, it is all about your herd management. A great milking session at River’s Edge Goat Dairy can produce 150 litres of milk from the goat herd in one of the two daily milking sessions.

Each milking session, some of the milk is used right away for milk, cheese, or yogurt, and the rest is stored in a storage tank for later use. The storage tank is cooled with a layer of ice water around the milk tank. This is essential for maintaining the quality of the milk. The milk stored can then be turned into cheese for later consumption.

                                                       Milk cooling and storage tank

Unlike some farms, River’s Edge Goat’s Farm lets the goats produce milk in their natural cycle. They produce 300 days a year, so the goats have themselves a winter break! Their milking season is aligned ‘to a tee’ with the winter solstice and spring equinox. In March they begin their milking season, which starts when they kid. This means more milk! With the kids breastfeeding and getting bigger, the mothers’ production increases and increases. After increasing their milk for the first 10-12 weeks after kidding, the mother goats’ output gradually decreases until the end of the milking season in December. So that’s a lot of milk. Will tells us how goats are much more efficient than cows, costing him at least 25% per output on feeding costs!  So with all that milk, how much money can a farmer make?

In truth, there’s not a lot of money in the goat industry in Ontario. They do not have the luxury of the quota system like dairy cows, where the amount of dairy products available is limited therefore raising the price. Neither do they have the luxury of New Zealand or Australia, where goat farmers can leave their cows to graze outside for 11 months a year, which limits both feed and infrastructure costs. For the reasons of this lack of profit, there has been less research and funding on it in Canada and therefore less knowledge surrounding goat farming practices.

Because of the underdevelopment of this industry, Katie and Will have had to be entrepreneurs in their field. Katie started the farm over 17 years ago, and it has been a learning process ever since. Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) has been an important partner for their farming practice development, and Nick explains how they have been a key to their success. Because of the lack of money in goat farming in Ontario, there is not nearly as much knowledge of goats as there is in other countries where goat farming is more profitable. Money breeds knowledge, and again, there’s not much money in the goat industry in Ontario.

Well, if you take my word for how delicious it is, why not give goat a try? I’m definitely hooked. You can check out River’s Edge Goat Dairy for yourself at 8102 Wellington Rd 109-Hwy 109 near Arthur, Ontario, or at various farmer’s market around Ontario (more details here: http://www.goatmilkproducts.ca/contact.php) .

References

1. Adekunle, B. (2015, September 30). Can appropriate certification process improve food sovereignty?  Retrieved August 4, 2016, from http://evcontario2011.blogspot.ca/2015/09/can-appropriate-certification-process.html

2.  Charles, R. (2016, April 04). Halal labelling rules kick in today, but certifying organizations remain unregulated. Retrieved June 26, 2016, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/halalcertification-1.3519910

Samuel Dent, URA, ECVOntario, University of Guelph