Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 21 ISSUE 1
Written by Agatha POPESCU, Alina MARCUTA, Liviu MARCUTA, Cristina TINDECHE

The paper aimed to analyze the main trends in goat livestock and milk, meat, cheese and butter production at the world level during the last 30 years, more exactly since 1990 till present. The data collected from Faostat have been processed using fixed basis index, regression equations and coefficient of determination. The results proved that goats are important in the agriculture of many countries. They play a more and more important role in food security and safety, milk, meat, cheese, butter, yoghourt being called to complete dairy products offer and satisfy better consumers' demand. In 2019, the goat livestock reached the peak of the last three decades, accounting for 1,093.7 million heads, milk production was 19.91 million tonnes, meat production 6.25 million tonnes, cheese production 564 thousand tonnes and 7,427 tonnes butter. The highest number of goats is in Asia (54%) and Africa (38%), the highest meat production is also in Asia (73%) and Africa (23%), and the largest milk production is obtained also in Asia (54%), Africa (25%) and Europe (15%). Cheese production has the highest level in Africa (44%), followed by Europe (38%) and Asia (13.6%). Goat breeders are encouraged to continue their business raising goats due to the higher and higher demand for the goat products. The great challenges for goat producers are market fluctuations, price volatility, climate change which could affect forage resources. In this respect, goat breeders associations will play an important role in supporting the farmers with technical services and effective policies to sustain them to benefit from the demand growth.

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