In early 2006 I was contacted by a man in Kansas name Roger Novak about getting goats to his farm in Belize. I took on the project because I thought it would be fun and they guy sounded desperate for options. He explained to me that there are many feral and native goats in Belize, but nothing like what we have in America. He also added that only one group of goats had ever been imported to Belize before this, but they belonged to the government and stayed at the national farm. Roger also explained to me that in Belize the growing season is much longer and that you can produce much more per acre. As soon as we started our planning, Blue Diamond meat processing announced plans to open a goat kill plant near Roger's farm in Belize. This was news that I enjoyed because I knew that if they were interested in setting up there, then this must be an untapped market.

I went about the task of getting all the health requirements together and quickly learned that animals from the U.S. aren't allowed in Belize due to mad cow disease scares. So I looked abroad to Mexico and Brazil. Luckily, my wife speaks spanish well and I can a little too. I came across many people who had native improved spanish goats (which might I add are much better than Texas spanish goats, or even average boers in my opinion), but that wasn't good enough. I wanted to send the best to the country that I could find. I soon discovered that finding breeders in Mexico is like finding a needle in a hay stack! I resorted to looking in a mexican knock-off version of Ebay. I finally found them; excellent quality boers, excellent quality dorper sheep, and a breeder who was a vet and spoke english to boot.

DR. Jose Loyo was the breeder and he welcomed us to come down for selection. We did some more planning and headed down. Dr. Loyo had some of the finest dorpers in all of the world as you can see in the picture with Roger. We chose a group to go and made arangements for testing and transport. We also sent some american LGD's for protection from Connie Ditmar.

When the whole bunch got to Belize, the locals at the state farm were pleased to see such quality being introduced into their genepool as well as their economy. I know that it will take time, but Belize has an opportunity to have a great new industry that they have really never known until now. That would not be possible if it weren't for guys like Roger Novak who see an opportunity to expand and contribute to the world's farming scene. Oh by the way Roger's animals are doing very well and the herd has already seen its first new members. Only the local economy will now determine what the future holds for boer goat and dorper sheep in Belize!