Other goat farming blogs
One of the ways we use to keep abreast of the local goat farming industry is to look up and read other blogs.
The only directory I could find was the Direktori Pertanian dan Penternakan that has been put up by Global Excellent Marketing Sdn Bhd. It appears that the link to sign up to get listed is to send the blog administarator an email at direktoripertanian@yahoo.com.my
I must congratulate the blog administrator for this excellent effort, which is indeed a great help to the rest of us in the industry.
We have just registered our blog with the administrator. I have to follow up and check as to when it would be put up.
I have often clicked through the farms listed in this Directory, read the posts and get to know a lot more about the local goat farming industry. The farms are listed in alphabetical order, and so we do not know the location or the size till we click and read about the farm.
It would be great if the Directory also had facilities to be able to sort the farms by State.
Some of the things I have noticed about some of the other blogs are:
- Many are stories on personal experiences narrated in the own words of the farmer and /or blog author. This is great as this is far better than reading something that is theoretical.
- Some of the blogs have advertisements and pop ups that keep intruding upon the readers focus on the articles.
- Some of the blogs have sort of dropped off or the blogging frequency has reduced or stopped.
I am quite intrigued by the 3rd issue, especially on why the blogger has stopped. Is it because he or she is so busy with daily activities that there has been no time to blog? Or is it because he has stopped the farming activity? And if so why?
I am planning to click through these blogs and see if I can get to talk to these farmers and try to get to know them better. Insya’Allah, I’ll blog about these visits.
You made a point which also i noticed of in that many of the blogs have ‘died’ off after just a few short posts. The question for me is the same. Have they become just too busy which i doubt as seriously as it takes just a few minutes to make an actual post. Or have they just given up goat rearing after becoming disillusioned with the very hard work involved? I suspect the latter.
Here is Sarawak there is a buzz in regards to goat farming which took off the year before last. The interest seemed to stem from the Goverment’s publicity in the profitability in goat farming and of course the incentives of subsidies. Still sadly most of these new start up’s died off. The reason?
Instead of us second guessing let’s see if we can find out the reason directly from these ‘ex’ farmers. It will be surely useful to those considering into goat farming to realize the reality of venturing into this business.
By the way, i will be adding to your blog/site to my list of blogs i read.
Cheers, The Kebun
Thanks, Kebun for dropping by. Yours is one of the very few English blogs, the others all seem to be in Malay.
I have a sneaky feeling that a lot of the entrants have been hynotised by the subsidies and the fact that Malaysian demand far exceeds supply. Until they find out what is involved, like you pointed out.
And a very big thank you for adding my blog to your list.
Cheers
You hit the nail on the head with this sentence - ‘I have a sneaky feeling that a lot of the entrants have been hynotised by the subsidies and the fact that Malaysian demand far exceeds supply.’- but i have my own opinion on the latter.
We have been given all sorts of facts and figure in regards to the importation figures of ‘daging kambing’ all these years. Admittedly the figures show that the demand and local supply is very lopsided. My question was if why is there so much imported ‘daging kambing’ coming in then where is this demand for us farmers? Where are all those customers we imagined that were tearing down our farm gates and ringing the telephone like mad? It looks like we are only getting the occasional inquiry and order for live goats to fulfil our religious obligations.
I had given much thought to this ‘mystery’ even so much as to wander the markets looking for ‘daging kambing’ sellers, supermarkets and so forth. What i have realize is that we have been made idiots all this while, and the culprits are our greedy self’s and the associated Government agencies who simply blast us with their sweet facts, figures and subsidies. Let me explain.
If we do not take into account those few butchers who only sell fresh ‘daging kambing’(whom some also offer ‘daging kambing import’ which is cheaper) then we can almost hardly find ANY ‘daging kambing’ in the stores and supermarkets. BUT we can find TONS and TONS of ‘daging kambing biribiri’. Correct?
Those huge import figures shown by the government is correct but they fail to mention those figures are a VERY large part as figures for ‘daging kambing biribiri’. All these is to service the thousands and thousands of western and mamak makan shops, hotels, family and friend bbq’s and so forth who use LAMB/MUTTON.
I can GUARUNTEE that when the Government agency concern put their figures together every year they don’t even realize that by lumping the regular Goat and Sheep meat together has resulted in very big implications. They won’t know the difference anyway between the 2 meats and think they one the same when they tuck into their Lamb Chops at their favorite western hang out.
What a mess.
Direktori: Terima kasih atas lawatan ladangfatima di weblog pertanianmalaysia. Direktori ingin memohon maaf kerana weblog direktori lambat dikemaskinikan, ingin memaklumkan yg weblog direktori tersebut masih lagi aktif.
Direktori juga baru sahaja mewujudkan GEM Community, satu Forum/laman untuk Usahawan & Bakal Usahawan Berkongsi maklumat dan pendapat dalam bidang Pertanian.Sila LAyari laman di bawah:-
http://gem.socialgo.com
HiFathersez, it’s been a while since i first started toying with the idea of goat breeding. Slowly, been doing some ‘research’ - 1) reading online (found quite a few blogs), 2) visited two farms in my area, and 3) recently went on a 2-day course by KPD.
With the online blogs, i too noticed that quite a lot were no longer updated.
With visiting the farms, I couldn’t really find out much about who their buyers were (i guess they wouldn’t want me stealing their customers in the future!). (one said ‘if they see you have a farm, they will come’ -hmm, a bit too ’simple optimism’ for my comfort)
With the ‘kursus’, KPD was really encouraging us to breed Boers. At their high price tho I asked who normally bought the goats. Their answer was that they’ve even been refusing to sell. (not very informative). I hope that they’re main source of customers are not just unwitting start-up farmers.
They did mention that Brunei wanted a steady supply of 400 goats per month, but they had to turn it down because they don’t have the numbers yet. But when asked if they’re going to offer contract farming to small time farmers (with enought numbers the quota for export might be met,) they say no.
When i shop i buy “lamb chops” simply because there aren’t “goat chops” (sounds weird doesn’t it) at the supermarkets.
So I agree that the government should work on educating, and promoting to the consumers. How do we start getting them to do this then?
Hi, Natasha,
You are doing the absolute right thing. It is often said that we should never ever invest in anything that we do not understand. So if we get “non helpful” answers, you can take it that they cannot be understood.
Take your time and research as much as you want. Until you feel you have gotten answers that are satisfactory.
If you are still eager to start, then you can start off as an agent…for some other farm. See how the marketing works for you.
Cheers