KEY POINTS:
From alpacas to ginseng, the primary sector has a long history of trying interesting new ways to make a dollar. In the second of a series, agriculture editor Stephen Ward looks at ostriches, which are farmed for their meat, leather and feathers.
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Ostrich farming - all the rage in the mid-1990s - got its head stuck firmly in the sand later that decade as the industry hit problems.
But today a number of players survive, selling meat and other ostrich products as well as running associated tourism ventures showing off these remarkable animals.
Two operations farm around 2000 birds. One of them, Kumeu-headquartered Tajo Ostrich which has a farm at Galatea near Rotorua, was set up by former Korean bond market dealer Hyosup Bae. It exports meat and sells to more than 50 supermarkets and about 150 restaurants.
Export fillets fetch about $30 a kg while supermarket sales return $30 to $40 a kg. The "boutique" meat of ostriches - which soaks up other flavours well - is low in fat and high in iron and protein.
Tajo also runs a tourism operation and restaurant at the farm.
The other big player nationally is Alexandra-based Ostex in the South Island, which is a similar size to Tajo. It is believed there are few other "serious" ostrich farmers with 50 birds or more. It was a rocky road to this more settled situation.
At 42, Phil Hale is an industry veteran who now runs a small tourism venture, Piako Ostriches, at Turua near Thames. He became fascinated with the birds during childhood. Now he is something of an ostrich guru and literally a father figure to his animals, given he is the first living thing they see when they come out of their eggs.
Hale's potted history of ostrich farming in this country starts in the mid-1990s as a story of big promises by Australian promoters followed by broken dreams.
The promoters offered investors the chance to own birds here or across the Tasman and the idea was that they would buy a mating pair which would produce lots of animals for slaughter, and for other products such as leather bags and feathers.
But there were cases, says Hale, of people disappearing with money or selling the same birds to many people.
Hale himself walked away from an investment in Australia that didn't work.
But, given his passion for the birds, he eventually set up his ostrich farm in 1996, while other businesses continued to operate around the country as well.
However, Hale says that by 1999 the industry started to fall apart through a lack of co-ordination. Most people, he says, got out.
But he decided to concentrate on a craft shop and tourism venture. The overall ostrich business isn't making him rich but combined with other income allows his family to get along happily.
Meanwhile, Tajo's general manager Susan Binks says the business - with about seven full-time staff - turns over around $1 million a year from ostrich-related products alone and is profitable.
"Because we're so vertically integrated, it's made it that way."
She says that, besides the tourism operators and those farming meat for their own businesses, some farms are starting to supply Tajo given the many outlets for meat it has on its books.
