Boer goats like these are one of the meat varieties of goat, a growing industry in Kansas. These goats are being raised on a farm near Manhattan.

Manhattan ? The nation’s changing demographics – and particularly the recent influx of several immigrant groups – is expanding a historically small market for Kansas ranchers: goat meat.

Without the benefit of a flashy slogan or major marketing campaign, the industry is rapidly carving itself a spot right along the beef and pork markets. Demand for the meat has grown with the growth of Middle Eastern, Asian, African, Latin America and Caribbean populations, each of which buys goat meat and is willing to pay higher prices for a quality product.

The Kansas Meat Goat Association, founded in 2000, numbers around 100 members. Beth Gaines-Riffel, editor of Grass and Grain weekly newspaper, and her family have been in the goat meat business for about nine years and have witnessed the growth.

“I used to travel quite a bit for my job, and you’d see a pack of goats in southeast Kansas,” Gaines-Riffel said. “Anymore, you don’t have to drive very far to see meat goats popping up.”

As of Jan. 1, 2006, the total number of milk goats and kids in Kansas totaled 23,000 head, up 5 percent from 2005, according to a Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service report. Figures for the goat meat industry were not even compiled by KASS prior to 2005.

In 2006, the country’s goat inventory totaled 2.8 million head, up from 2.5 million head in 2005, according to the KASS report.

Nutrition information compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows a 3 oz. serving of cooked goat as 122 calories, 2.6 grams of fat, 23 grams of protein, and 63.8 milligrams of cholesterol. The same size serving of chicken has 162 calories, 6.3 grams of fat, 25 grams of protein, and 78 milligrams of cholesterol. Similar servings of beef and pork were even higher in all these categories.

“Goat is one of most healthy meats you can find,” Diane Hess, president of the Kansas Meat Goat Association, said.

Some goat meat experts describe the taste as similar to lamb, but with a slightly sweeter taste.