Marvin Shurley, president of American Meat Goat Association and second vice president of Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association, writes in the coming, March 2008, issue of Ranch & Rural Living about efforts to create an all-encompassing national goat organization. While at the American Sheep Industry Association meeting in Las Vegas in late January, members of the ASI Goat Committee decided that in order for collaboration of efforts between ASI and the goat industry on various projects to occur, there needs to be a central entity, a national spokes-organization for all goat groups.

Kudos to Marvin and other goat industry leaders for recognizing the need, and good luck stitching all the diverse groups together. Of course, AMGA, under Marvin’s leadership, along with other goat organizations including the Dairy Goat Association and several breed registries, attempted the same thing a few years ago in creating the U.S. Goat Council. Marvin writes:

A name, The American Goat Federation (AGF) was chosen for this to-be-formed-entity, replacing the former, U.S. Goat Council, that was chosen back in 1993 when this effort first began.

Fifteen years is long enough for this initiative to have been stuck on high center and those of us present at the meeting feel the U.S. goat industry has matured enough at this time to where we can move forward with AGF formation. We are looking to finally having that “voice” we have been in need of. As current American Meat Goat Association president it is with pride that I say we, the AMGA have been involved with this effort since the concept originated back in 1993 . . .