Andhra emu farming sector waits for govt support

Despite having a massive potential in the domestic and export markets while contributing to the ecological regrowth of the country, emu farming in the country is still a long way away from logging good growth rates.

Even though emu farming is gaining popularity in Andhra Pradesh and many innovative farmers are taking to it as an alternative to cash crops, because of the bird's '100 per cent utility' in terms of market value, emu farmers in the state are struggling to market emu products on a commercial scale. There are close to 100 emu farms in India with Andhra Pradesh alone accounting for about 40 of them.

For the uninitiated, emu is the national bird of Australia and is the second largest living member of the ratite family of flightless birds. Its meat, skin and oil command a high market value.

There is almost 100 per cent utilisation of the bird with emu meat being 98 per cent fat-free and its oil, which has moisturising properties, being used in curing arthritis related problems.

The bird's leather has a subtle quilled pattern and is used to make shoes, luggage and accessory items while its double-quilled feathers are used to manufacture dusters.

Speaking to Business Standard, DRK Reddy, the owner of Vijay Ratite Farm in Gollala Mamidada village of East Godavari district, and the honorary president of Indian Emu Association (iEa), offered some interesting insights regarding the bird and the business it can fetch: "From about 10 inches at birth, a fully-grown emu could be six-foot tall and weigh up to 40 kgs. The bird's life span is 40 years and lives on a simple diet. An emu starts laying eggs, each weighing between 450 gms and 750 gms, after 2 years and continues to lay eggs till 25 to 35 years."

"These 'bullet-proof birds', which are less prone to diseases, are generally processed when they are around 12-18 months old, with the average return being 10-15 kg of meat, 5 litres of oil, 0.7 metres of skin for leather and 0.75 kg of feathers. At present, emu meat is priced at Rs 250 per kg while its oil is priced at Rs 2,000 per litre, and its skin at Rs 5,000. On the whole, a farmer can earn around Rs 20,000 gross income from a fully-grown bird," he added.

Pendyala Satyanaranyana, the proprietor of Vijay Ratite Farm, introduced emu farming to Andhra Pradesh, when he procured about 20 emus from his NRI son-in-law Mutyala Ramakrishna of Australia in 1996. Later, he sold the farm to DRK Reddy.

According to Reddy, the emu farming industry in Andhra Pradesh is estimated to be around Rs 6 crore.

"At present, our farm has 2,000 birds. Since 1997, we distributed around 4,000 birds, ranging from 10 to 20 pairs of birds, to other innovative farmers across the country. Last year we processed 1,000 chicks while we expect to process 1,500 chicks this year," he said.

"There is a huge demand for the bird's meat among the calorie-conscious people in the country. We have been receiving enquiries from five-star hotels, bars and restaurants in the state regarding emu meat. The demand for the commercial production of emus is increasing as well. But still the emu farmers are not in a position to commercially market the bird's products due to the limited number of birds in the country. This can be attributed to the lack of support from the central government," Reddy said.

"In 1997, our farm imported 1,465 birds from Dallas in the US. The customs department raised objections and so we had to pay Rs 20 lakh as import tax to the Chennai Customs. This is in contrary to countries like Australia and the US which issued import licences to the emu farmers and in return are earning millions of dollars of foreign exchange," he added.

To support the cause, the emu farmers in the state formed into an 'Indian Emu Association' four years back and have been striving to get a legal status for their business.

"We have applied to the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) for an import licence. The file is still pending with the DGFT for clearance. Seeing a huge demand for the emu oil, we approached the drug controller for a licence to manufacture the oil on a large scale. The drug controller too denied a licence," he said.

Reddy said that the small-scale emu farmers in the state, unable to maintain their farms, are selling emu eggs, for Rs 1,000 each, to other farmers who have incubators or cutting the bird and selling its meat.

"Until we get the import licence, we have to rely on the numbers that we now have in hand. We are now just concentrating on multiplying the numbers before entering into the commercial supply of emu meat. At present, we are selling a one-week-old male and female pair of emus at Rs 6,000 to the breeder farms," Reddy said.

"The government, apart from issuing import licences, should also grant subsidies for the emu farming industry as it brings in huge amounts of foreign exchange. We are looking forward for a day when the emu farming industry will have two segments "� breeding farms and cutting farms "� as in the case of the poultry industry, which we hope is not far away," Reddy added.