Dear Vidyasankar,
Appreciate your bold and open statement on this.
Scenario will change soon, which is inevitable.
There are few points worth noting:
1. Emu meat and Oil extraction is the way to go to develop this industry.
2. Emu meat is tasting like Beef, but with no bad effects of beef. Hence there is a huge untapped market potential in Kerala region and Middle East, where Buffalo and Cow meat are exported and used. Somehow, it would save "Cow Slaughtering" as well.
3. People are keep saying, there is not enough Emu population to start Emu Slaughtering house. But, have anybody done any marketing of Emu meat as "diet meat"?. Marketing of Diet meat starts from preparing a tastier way of cooking Emu meat recipes and selling it upmarket consumers as diet meat. Once there is a recipe available and the food items made by Emu meat is realised, the demand will automatically pick up, where there will be regional slaughter houses, which would suck tons of emu meat into it. Somebody has to start it, who is going to roll the dice? Individuals or Associations?
4. How many Emu Oil companies are out there in India to produce pharma grade purified oil? to my knowledge none. if somebody has any info, please let me know. What stops one to start such oil processing facility, which would consume large quantity of Emu Oil? This will eventually lead to cull the birds and the resultant meat has to be marketed, somehow.
A simple calculation for meat requirement if it replaces the regular mutton or beef or chicken together, based on health-conscious grounds:
A small suburb with a population of 50,000 people, assuming it consumes, around 150 kgs per day of meat, where 10% of Emu meat is replaced, which is 15 Kg/day. Half-a-bird will give 15 Kg, which eventually translates to 3 birds a week, which is 156 birds a year. To generate 156 birds for culling, it has to be reared for 18 months, which leads to 312 birds has to be maintained in the farm a year to meet this requirement. Imagine, how big is India, how many such small suburbs are there in India, the resultant numbers are huge.
By the way, now the mutton price has soared up to 360/Kg, whereas some of the Emu farmers are selling Emu meat at 300/Kg. So, its time to market Emu meat, as diet meat.
But, anybody know who is buying the Emus for Slaughtering Purpose???