Have you ever eaten goat’s meat? Our restaurant critic David Ellis says it’s delicious: like lamb but tougher and tastier, best in a stew or any kind of slow-cooked dish. You’d better brush up on your recipes for casseroles and vindaloos, then, for in the next few years you could be looking at rows of goat’s meat next to dwindling portions of Argentine beef on UK supermarket shelves.
Climate change is transforming the way we farm all over the world: and in those parts most directly affected by the crisis, cows are out in favour of less demanding grazers who can survive on less food and less water. In the Limpopo region of northeast South Africa, pastures that have long teetered on the edge of collapse are beginning to farm goats, who are more adaptable than both cattle and sheep, surviving off the leaves and fruit of the acacia tree. They are also becoming a popular farming animal in Brazil, the world’s second largest producer of beef after America.
