Enhancing meat goat marketing: A study of marketing channels and practices used by meat goat producers in Tennessee

The census data indicates that more than 700,000 immigrants enter USA each year. A report released by the U.S. Census Bureau also shows that there were 290,059 people of Hispanic descent living in Tennessee in 2010. This represents a 134 percent increase over the 123,838 Hispanics counted during the 2000 Census. Demand for goat meat has continued to increase in recent years. Because of this, even with significant increase in domestic slaughter, United States has become a net importer of goat meat as supply did not keep up with the demand. The goat meat market is not well structured in United States. There is also anecdotal evidence that there are not enough processing plants available in Tennessee and the producers have to ship their goats to far-off processing plants for processing increasing their marketing cost. Survey results says that the direct farm sales as marketing channel drawing more new customers along with the repeated customers through word of mouth kind of advertisements. This research strongly shows that the producers are willing to increase their business when they are provided with required information and also it shows that this enterprise helps in increasing the income of the small farmers. The overall purpose of the project is to identify appropriate marketing channels for producers and analyze. Also to assess the current meat goat industry to suggest strategies to better manage the enterprise and increase income of goat producers in Tennessee. This may help increase goat meat production to meet the domestic demand while maximizing on the marketing strategies to ensure profitability of the goat producers and minimizing the cost of importing the goat meat