How to Start EMU Business:

Emu Model Project

Investments:
Buying 10 pairs of 3 months old Emu birds
Cost Rs. 2,00,000(INR)
Cost  of Fencing Rs. 70,000/- (one time)
Feed cost per year for 10 pairs of emu birds  -Rs.90,000/-
Income:
Emu birds start laying eggs after 18 months
First time 10 pairs of emu will give 100 egss
Second time  10 pairs of emu brids will give 200 eggs
third time  10 pairs of emu brids will give 300 eggs + plus
       Emu bird lays eggs only between October to march every year
•    As per this model project the Total Investment is Rs.3,60,000/- INR (One time Investment)
•    Income from this model project will be Rs 3.00,000 INR for every year (Todays market value per egg is Rs.1000/- so (300 eggs X Rs.1000/- = Rs.3,00,000/- INR )
•    This income will continue for 30 years as emu will lay eggs for more than 30 years.
•    Why Emu Farm India?
•    At a time when Emu Farming is blooming in the country and there are a good many Emu farms competing against one another, one must be absolutely sure about the company one chooses.
•    Besides choosing an american DNA model for Emu birds which gives you a 30% increase in profits as compared to normal birds, we also have created myriad business models and packages which will suit you irrespective of your requirements.

setting up ostrich farm
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Ostrich farming is an opportunity in India. At present the ostrich meat ranks highest among health foods in Europe. Ostrich a large flightless hardy bird of African origin can survive in temperatures ranging from two degrees to fifty degrees Celsius. It can be reared on barren land and mainly consumes Alfa-alfa, Lucerne and water.

Male ostriches are black, with white wings and tail. The white feathers of the male, which are large and soft, are the ostrich plumes of commercial value. The female is dull greyish brown. The males are polygamous, and move with three or four females or in groups of four or five males accompanied by mates and young ones. The females lay their yellowish white eggs together in a single large depression in the sand. The eggs weigh about 1.48 kg. each and have a volume of about 1.4 liters. The male sits on them at night and the female incubates them by day. The life expectancy is about 60-70 years.

The first organised ostrich farm was established for feathers in about 1863 in Karoo and Eastern Cape region of South Africa.

Advantages of Ostrich farming
The bird can be reared in paddock alongwith sheep, goat and cattle.

ii. The birds need no dipping, drenching, milking and shearing.

iii. The adaptability of the bird is equally high on annual and perennial pastures or scrub.

iv. The bird can be reared both in hot and freezing temperatures.

v. The bird has shown high sustainability in irrigated as well as rainfed farming environments.

vi. There is virtually no waste products in the bird.

vii. The size of the farm is not a limiting factor.

viii. The added value segments all along the products is very high.

The limiting factors that can be prudently managed are :

i. High capital investments for setting up of the farms.

ii. The markets for meat and its byproducts are not easily accessible.

iii. The high penalties for slaughtering older birds (20 months and above) in the European countries.

iv. The birds are potential and vulnerable for avian disorders particularly for Newcastle disease.


A beginning has been made to promote ostrich farms in India through Indo-French Seminar on “Advanced Food Technology and Ostrich Farming” organised on 25 February 1997 at Bangalore by Greater Mysore, Chamber of Industry (GMCI) in association with Karnataka Agro Industries Corporation (KAIC), and was co-sponsored by Indian Overseas Bank.

Breeding specifications


Social Life ------------- 1 male for 2 females

Duration of life ------------- 70 years

Breeding years ------------- 30 years

Laying -------------- 60 eggs average per breeding

Fattening birds --------------30 (12 months)

Egg weight --------------- 1.6 kg (24 hen eggs weight)

Mortality ------------------ Nil (upto 3 months age)

Food ---------------- secial diet and fresh food

Particular nature ------------ growth of 1 cm/day during the 1st 6 months

Slaughtering age ------------------ 12 months

Meat Output ---------------------- 30-35 kg fillet and steak

Skin output ---------------------- 1.40 m2


PRODUCTION SYSTEM :

i) Is based on the symbosis of 2 different rearing technics : poultry and cow farming.

ii) Production is a semi-intensive farming : indoors and outdoors (building and free space)


Technical specifications for an ostrich farm

Age ---------------- Indoor------------------------ Outdoor

1-21 days----------- building 0.5 sq.m./bird--------according to climate
3-5 sq.m/bird

22-90 days-------- building 1.00 sq.m/bird-----------required 10sq.m./bird

90 days - 300 days------ open shelter-----------------minimum 50 sq.m
1 sq.m./bird 100 sq.m./bird
slaughtering)
l minimum space 1000
sq.m
Breeders/Selection-


12 months and older------open shelter----------------500-800 sq.m./bird

5 sq.m./bird minimum space 1000sq.m.


Note : (i) The open shelter should offer protection on 3 sides with a door on the 4th side.

The opening will be minimum 1.50 wide. The shelter will be minimum 2.50 m high.

(ii) The fence will be minimum 1.50 m high for the birds and breeders (accordingto the farm and objectives) with a post for every 4 meters.

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New agriculture plan ignores small farmers

The Tanzania’s green revolution grand plan (Kilimo Kwanza) is doomed to have little impact on the improvement of agriculture because the process of its preparation neglected the needs and priorities of small-scale producers, stakeholders have said.

Speaking at an agricultural forum recently in Dar es Salaam stakeholders said sidelining small farmers, livestock keepers, fishermen, and beekeepers, who form the bulk of the agricultural community in the country was a mistake that could make the green revolution less meaningful for the majority of Tanzanians.

About 80 per cent of Tanzanians depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, according to official estimates. The sector also employs more than 50 per cent of the country’s workforce in small-scale production ventures. Furthermore agriculture contributes 26.7 per cent of the country’s GDP; 30 per cent of total exports; and 65 per cent of raw materials for Tanzanian industries.

Mr Richard Mbunda from the Political Science department of the University of Dar es Salaam has done a research entitled “Kilimo Kwanza and Small Scale Producers: An Opportunity or a Curse?” He said during the forum organised by Land Rights Research & Resource Institute (HakiArdhi) that despite the fact that commonsense dictated that small farmers should be key to agriculture transformation because of their majority share in the sector; they were, nevertheless, sidelined.

“The preparation of Kilimo Kwanza (KK) was an affair of the business community under the Tanzania Business Council and no deliberate efforts were done to consult small scale producers,” Mr Mbunda said in a draft report of the research.He said even credit conditions from the agriculture window of the Tanzania Investment bank that has been entrusted with financing KK leaves out small producers.“TIB only lends between Sh100 and Sh1 billion for agriculture-related projects. Poor farmers, who form the majority, cannot afford to borrow that much,” Mr Mbunda said.

He added that even the instance that farmers form groups does not hold water because most of these groups and cooperatives are poorly managed, and usually, uncreditworthy. KK was adopted in 2009 by the government as a national resolve to accelerate agricultural transformation. Its main focus is to modernise and commercialise agriculture in Tanzania. The KK plan was meant to be a break from past initiatives which, according to brains behind KK, failed to “attain the anticipated modernised and highly productive agriculture.”

“Past initiatives were centrally planned, and largely implemented by the government or its institutions. To the contrary KK is an initiative that originated from the private sector and became a PPP [Public Private Partnership]. Thus the private sector is expected to be the lead implementing agent of KK,” reads a KK document.
The implication of the KK, according to experts, is that in order to be successful Tanzania’s agricultural must employ a heavy usage of mechanisation and huge financial capital.

However experts have warned that if that kind of agricultural revolution is done blindly and fails to recognise the place of petty producers, as indications have already shown, KK will be creating a labour/land crisis that would not easily be contained in the country.

A renowned Indian Economics professor, Utsa Patnaik, and former secretary general of the UN Kofi Annan say agricultural transformation in poor countries should be centred around small-scale producers, because neglecting them is most likely to lead into high unemployment, deepening poverty and, ultimately, political instability.“...

strategies which generate livelihoods and genuine development for the majority must necessarily mean not the destruction, but on the contrary, the preservation of petty production,” Prof Patnaik, the author of “The Republic of Hunger” said at the second Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival week in Dar es Salaam last year.

“Small-holder farmers are the mainstay of African agriculture. They have to be right at the heart of Africa’s green revolution.  We need to ensure they are given the knowledge and support to play their full part in the transformation of food production through access to seeds, fertilizers and other resources,” Mr Annan who is also the chairperson of the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), said in Rome this year.

Prof Patnaik argued that mechanisation and technical advancement in European agriculture and industry in 19th and 20th centuries was partly responsible for colonialism as the unemployed masses had to moved away in large-scale migrations in search of better conditions. This in a way defused economic crisis and political tensions in Europe.
“... millions of peasants today in the third world have nowhere to migrate to and little possibility of absorption into the secondary sector,” Prof Patnaik said.

Mr Annan noted that developing Africa’s agriculture was not the matter of big farms versus small, but rather of making the two working together through creating linkages.“ Responsible, large scale farming systems can play an important role in directly supporting small farmers through technical advice, transfer of new technologies and support and access to markets,” he said at an International Fund for Agricultural Development’s Governing Council meeting in Rome.

The research conducted by Mr Mbunda already found out further that the start of the implementation of KK has now left small scale producers in farming, livestock, fisheries and beekeeping at the crossroads partly because they do not understand the project or are unaware of their role.

The immediate feeling that they get when they hear about KK is power tillers and tractors that are either very difficult for them to buy or not useful to them given their topography and nature of the soil, according to the findings of the research.“Kilimo Kwanza presents to them a dreadful feeing of losing their land to large-scale investors through land grabbing and a fear of being displaced from agriculture itself, which is their lifeline,” Mr Mbunda said when presenting a draft report at the forum. 

The notion that Tanzania has ample idle land, as implied in the KK documents, also serves to justify the fears of the peasants.“The notion that Tanzania has idle land is misleading taking into consideration the high population density and the high birth rate of this country. And, in fact, most of the arable land is already occupied by peasants, livestock keepers and beekeepers,” said Mwanahamisi Singano, a Programme officer at ActionAid Tanzania.

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