Halifax Co., VA - A newly formed organization on the Southside is proving there's strength in numbers. It took a year-and-a-half, but the Southern Meat Goat Association- a group of goat producers- held their first successful sale a few weeks ago. Now, they're preparing their goats for the next one.

It's a growing business in Halifax County- selling goats not for milk, but for meat.

Linda Wallace, Agricultural Development, said, "I thought why are we importing these animals we can grow them?"

It's a type of meat that's growing in demand, but as new producer Bonnie Brown found out, that demand isn't here on the Southside.

"We were raising the goats, doing a good job producing goats good goats but we had this one stumbling block, how to get them to where that big demand is," Brown said.

She and other producers paid big money to send their goats to bigger city markets.

"There's an expense to getting the goats to the market where you can get the best price and that really cuts into your profit if you're far from those markets," Brown said.

Leaving more of their goats chewing green, and less of them making the green.

"We were kind of struggling, all of us were struggling," Brown said.

Several nearby goat producers got together and figured they could make more if they marketed their animals together.

"The buyer can get 122 goats in one small swoop instead of driving to four and five livestock markets getting substandard," Wallace said.

Turns out they were right.

"It answered our prayers, it was really great," Brown said.

The association was able to form due to grant money from the Tobacco Commission. Now, they're working on getting more members and hopefully more buyers on board.

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