Easy-to-manage, sheep-like Angora goats an 'untapped goldmine' for farmers

Sheep-like Angora goats are an "untapped gold mine" and farmers are missing out on the big money to be made.

That's according to Nextgen Agri livestock consultant Georgia Buchholz, Lismore.

Ms Buchholz was helping out the team at the Agri Futures goat fibre program to ramp up interest in Angora and cashmere goat production at the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in Bendigo last weekend.

"We're trying to get more people to produce Angora goats for mohair and Australian cashmere goats for cashmere," she said.

"The market is super strong and there's high demand for both luxury fibres.

"It's an untapped goldmine really, waiting here to try and exploit."

Ms Buchholz said the largest production of goat fibre in the world occurred in South Africa where there was strong processing capacity.

She said India, China and Italy were home to the biggest markets and Australian farmers could jostle in for their share of the lucrative market.

While she said both Angora and cashmere goats were like managing twice-shorn Merinos, the fibre was different.

"It's a completely different fibre, the way its proteins are built," she said.

"It's different to the way sheep wool is put together."

She said with 1000 producers in Australia, just a handful of which had more than 1000 goats, the numbers just simply weren't enough at present.

"It's a pretty small group at the moment but there's well and truly the demand to fill in plenty more producers," she said.

Ms Buchholz said the two goat types could be run on any country that was suitable for feral goats - typically medium to low-rainfall areas.

"What's needed is more farmers producing the actual product and getting that into the market," she said.

"The processing side is all very well established.

"It's basically just the kilograms of fibre we need."

Angoras are shorn twice a year and have a very long fibre, typically growing 120 millimetres in that timeframe.

Cashmere goats are shorn once a year.

"Angoras are very similar to sheep, almost bang on the same as a twice-shorn Merino," Ms Buchholz said.

"The cashmeres are slightly hardier, being closely related to the range land or Boer goats.

"They've very, very similar management to sheep, contrary to belief."

She said there was also a meat product at the end of the goat's fibre production life.

She said the money in goat fibre production was "excellent".

"The demand is so high for such a luxury fibre," she said.

Ms Buchholz said cashmere, which top goats could produce up to 100 grams a year of, was sold at upwards of $120 a kilogram.

Angoras produced 2-2.5kg of mohair every six months and it sold at $45-$80/kg.

Jacey Ferguson, 19, Mallee Park Angora stud, Hopetoun, runs 150 Angora goats alongside parents Tim and Marianne.

She said there was a "fair bit of profit in the mohair".

"The mohair that we produce off of them, that's what we grow the animal for, they can produce quite a lot," she said.

"We send it off and it gets sorted away."

Mr Ferguson started the stud when he was a teenager, about 30 years ago.

Jacey had been around the goats her entire life and was at her first goat show when she was six-weeks-old.

Kidding, in September, was her favourite time of year.

"They just go out in the paddock and we don't do much with them," she said.

"They're very simple animals.

"They're probably my favourite animal on the farm, compared to the sheep."

Ms Buchholz said anyone interested in farming fibre goats could contact Nextgen Agri, the Agri Futures goat fibre team, Mohair Australia or Athe ustralian Cashmere Growers Association.