Rural / Country

Goat levy money to be distributed

06:29 am on 4 October 2011

Beef + Lamb New Zealand is to distribute $114,000 left over from levies collected from farmers who had goats processed at meat plants.

Farmers voted to stop paying a goat meat levy in a referendum held in 2009, when they also decided to cease paying wool levies.

Beef + Lamb is expecting plenty of interest from goat industry groups wanting a share of the unspent money.

Farm manager Richard Wakelin says it will consider funding projects that fit in with the sort of activities for which the levy was collected in the first place.

There are four areas under which projects will be considered.

They are goat extension, buck evaluation, special programmes to promote goat farming, and specialist support for individual groups.

Applications for funding close on 21 October.

A group consisting of goat industry and farmer representatives and Meat Goat New Zealand will decide which project should receive funding.