By Samudra Gupta Kashyap
Many of them in the Senapati district of the hill state have already undergone training for rearing the two birds, with officials at the Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Hengbung near Kangpokpi now waiting for an incubator to arrive from Chennai so that they can produce chicks for supply to the trained farmers.
“The idea of opening an experimental farm for rearing emu and turkey struck when some of our veterinary experts went for training in Tamil Nadu two years ago. We launched the project last year,” said K S Paominlen, secretary, Foundation for Environment and Economic Development Services (FEEDS), the host institute for the KVK in the district.
Accordingly, KVK-Sylvan — as the Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Hengbung, about 55 km north of Imphal, is called — has not only procured a number of birds from Chennai, but have also already carried out a series of training-cum-awareness programmes this year covering about 200 farmers. “At the moment we have 80 emus and 200 turkeys in our training-cum-demonstration farm, and farmers, who have been traditionally rearing chicken and ducks, keep visiting it in order to have a hands-on experience,” Paominlen said. The project is funded by ICAR through FEEDS.
“The emu chicks were three months old and weighed around three kg when brought to Hengbung in April last year. Each chick cost Rs 5,000. An emu will weigh anywhere between 25 and 30 kg in two year’s time and bring good returns for the rearer,” said N Muhindro Singh, subject-matter specialist for veterinary science at the KVK. A full-grown turkey would weigh up six to eight kg, he added.
Emus, interestingly, consume a lot of water and an adult can drink seven to ten litres of water in a day. They have to be fed thrice a day. “The investment will certainly be higher than rearing chicken. But compared to the investments, the returns will be much higher,” Singh informed.
Though people in the North Eastern region are yet to taste the meat of emu, Singh said it would not take much time
to develop this as the people in the region have been ntraditionally non-vegetarian in nature.
“While a local market is yet to be developed for emu meat, turkey is expected to pick up faster. Turkeys are already fetching between Rs 200 and Rs 250 per kg in Imphal,” Singh said.
Paominlen, on the other hand, has pinned hopes on National Highway 39 that links Hengbung to Imphal in the south and Kohima in the north. “Transporting the full-grown birds will not be a problem with the highway passing through Hengbung, and by the time we get the loans ready for the farmers, we also hope to develop a market in Guwahati,” he added.
Emu also has a much higher disease-resistance capacity when compared to other traditional poultry birds. Poultry-rearers in Manipur had suffered huge losses when bird flu broke out across the state three years ago.
FEEDS itself is a success story in its own way, being an NGO set up on 200 hectares of land donated by Palun Kipgen, a well-to-do resident of Hengbung over a decade ago.
The first major breakthrough, however, came when the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) sanctioned a Krishi Vigyan Kendra with FEEDS as the host NGO.
Having partnered with ICAR, IFAD and the state veterinary department, it today has a wide spectrum of activities including 70 hectares of tea plantation, 80 hectares under cardamom, and a sizeable area under medicinal and aromatic plants.
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