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Tue, Sep 04 2012. 12 01 AM I

There are about 5,000 emu farms in the country, spread

across states such as Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Gujarat and

Punjab, apart from Tamil Nadu, with about 250,000 birds in

India. Photo: SaiSen/Mint

Thousands of emus to be culled; few takers for meatLeading poultry companies say they wouldnt be taking part in any emu meat auction

By Arundhati Ramanathan

The promise was irresistibleinvest in emu farms in Erode, Tamil

Nadu, and more than double your money in two years. The world, s

went the spiel, couldnt get enough of the meat and oil this wonder

bird would produce. The bubble burst in July, six years after Susi

Emu Farms , one of the largest in the business , first launched the

scheme.

And what of the birds languishing in the scam-hit farms ? They are

being looked after by the states anim al husbandry department afte

being abandoned by the companies that have decamped.

Thousands of emus , the largest birds native to Australia, are to be

slaughtered and the meat is to be auctioned, said Dharmendra

Pratap Yadav, the states animal husbandry commissioner. The

may not be too many takers for this though.

Currently, we are taking care of 12,500 birds in 21 farms in Erode,

but ultimately, these b irds wi ll have to be dis posed of, Yadav said .

We need to obtain permis sion from the government and

subs equently the court for their dispos al, and tenders wil l be invite

from meat processors.

The scheme worked like this. The promoters of the emu farms , located mos tly in Perundurai in Erode, promised returns of 3.34 lakh in tw

years after an ini tial investment of 1.5 lakh for raising s ix emu chicks. The promotions were also endors ed by film s tars such as R. Sara

Kumarand Sathyaraj.

The fraud was unearthed when Sus i defaulted on monthly payments to investors. It had been paying old investors from cash raised from

new ones, and when fresh recruitments s tarted lagging behind payouts, the house of cards collapsed in clas sic pyramid schem e fashion

according to police. Promoters of s ix major farms in Erode fled with investors money, estimated at `70 crore by Tamil Nadu economic

offences wing officials. None of the farm companies representatives could be reached for comm ent.

Government officials estimate that about `3.85 crore will be needed to take care of the abandoned birds for three months. An official, who

didnt want to be named, said the animal husbandry department has as ked the government for funds, and this proposal is in the final

stages of approval.

Currently, we are taking feed from feed supplie rs under the prom ise that once the funds have been released, they will be paid, said the

official.

Is there a market for emu meat? Emu meat is s aid to be low in fat, and the oil derived from i ts body fat is suppos ed to have curative

properties. Each bird grows to about 5-6ft in height. Breeders say a bird gives up to 20kg of meat and up to 6 litres of oil.

It tastes like beef. Emu is also more of a game m eat like kangaroo, eaten very occasionally in Australia, much like venison, said Chris

Gregory, president of Australias Emu Indus try Federation. It takes a long time for people to begin accepting emu meat. In the majority o

countries, people dont know what an emu is , let alone emu meat.

Indias em us went from zero to thousand very quickly, he said. While the breeding of emus is the easy part, what needs to be in place

beforehand is the ecosystem process ing, value addition and m arketing. That wasnt the case in Erode. The bird needs different kind o

process ing. Unless meat process ors recognize this , and regulations are in place, emu m eat cannot be exported, Gregory said .

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7/15/13 Thousands of emus to be culled; few takers for meat - Print View - Livemint

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Leading poultry companies such as Venkys (India) Ltd and Suguna Foods Ltd, and meat process orAl Kabeersaid they wouldnt be

taking part in any emu m eat auction that may be held by the Tami l Nadu government.

It has no domestic demand. We have also studied the export potential of emu m eat and found none. Weve had no bel ief in the product

right from the start, said G.B. Sundararajan, managing director of Coimbatore-based Suguna Foods.

Prasanna Pedgaonkar, deputy general manager at Venkys, echoed this. In poultry, in 1 s q. ft of land, we produce 12kg of meat in a

year, Pedgaonkar said. For emus, you will need acres of land. It is not a viable bus iness. Also, for export, you will need a lot of

infrastructure, which we dont want to invest in as we see no potential in it.

But one entrepreneur said em u farming is a bona fide business that has got a bad rap because of the Erode fraud.

Vinay Sharma, a former Wall Street banker who used to work at Bank of New York Mellon Corp., runs Delhi-based Tall Bird Emu

Farm, a `8 crore company.

Internationally, there is a demand of 1.5 lakh litres of oil a m onth and we manage to sell only 10,000 litres a month, he said. We export t

pharmaceutical companies and cosm etic companies in Europe, USA and the Middle East. So the potential for emu farming definitely

exists.

Emu oi l, obtained from the fat deposi ted below the surface of the skin, contains pain-

relieving oleic acid and is beneficial for arthritis , he said.

Emu m eat is a new product in the country, and we have to create an organic market for it, Sharma said. When it took eggs 14 years tobecome widely accepted as a part of breakfast (in India), we need to give emu meat some time.

Also, emu meat needs to be priced closer to other meat products to help popu larize it, he said. A kg of mutton costs `350-375, while emu

meat sells at `400 a kg, he said.

There are about 5,000 emu farms in the country, spread across s tates such as Andhra Pradesh, Oriss a, Gujarat and Punjab, apart from

Tamil Nadu, with about 250,000 birds in India. Perceptions about the business have become negatively coloured by the recent scam, fee

the emu farm promoters from the other states.

Any likely auction of emu meat will harm the fledgling industry, Sharma s aid. A volume tender is no t the right way for doing away with the

meat, according to him. The animal husbandry department needs to lay out a long-term strategy to promote the industry and interact with

slaughterhouses to s lowly introduce the meat in the mains tream market.

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