What factors affect the success or failure of specialty breeding?
1. People's living standards have risen, and they have become more particular about food and clothing. Having grown tired of rich meats, they developed a desire to seek out novelty and try fresh things, which drove the development of the specialty breeding industry.
2. Idle funds invested in the breeding industry yield high returns and have solved the employment problem for many laid-off urban workers and idle rural laborers.
3. Media reports and some false advertisements, combined with people's urgent desire to get rich, have led to a rush into specialty breeding.
4. With the considerable development of animal husbandry in recent years, a few leaders have turned their attention to novel, high-starting-point specialty breeding. Large amounts of capital have been invested, which may be the achievement of one term of office but a burden for many terms to come.
Correctly approaching the specialty breeding industry
1. Put the specialty breeding industry in its proper place. Since rural reform began in our country, animal husbandry has made considerable progress, and specialty breeding is one member of the animal husbandry family. However, it cannot be treated as the main business or become the star attraction; it must not be blindly promoted, and above all there must be no mad rush.
2. Find out the market conditions, develop steadily, and above all do not get carried away. No matter what it is, when it is hyped back and forth and shrouded in fog, before it is served on ordinary people's dinner tables or worn on their bodies, it is not a final commodity, so there is no point talking about how much it is worth. Importing one ostrich costs about 20,000 US dollars; the smallest ostrich farm with one male and two females requires an equipment investment of 10,000 yuan and one mu of land. Our country has already spent huge sums to import breeding ostriches, but foreign exchange earned through exports is negligible. Even now some people still talk at length about how the ostrich is a treasure from head to toe, how high its nutritional value is, and how much a painted ostrich egg sells for as an art piece in US dollars. In reality, ostrich breeding requires large investment and a long breeding cycle; what is mostly seen is speculation in breeding stock, while sales as a commodity are very few.
3. Market conditions change unpredictably, and this is even more true for specialty breeding. Sales of ostriches and foxes are greatly affected by the international market. In addition, our country's processing technology lags behind, so most are exported live or fresh for a small profit, and then finished foreign products are bought back. For example, our country needs one million fox skins each year, but half are imported. To promote fox sales, some people say the Chinese market has huge potential: if one in 10 people owned a fox-fur collar, China would need to raise 1.5 billion foxes. By that estimate, wouldn't China become a kingdom of foxes?
4. Selection must be accurate, the market must be clearly understood, and it is not enough to look only at the present; there must be medium- and long-term plans, and China's national conditions should be considered even more. Regarding specialty breeding, our country has had many painful lessons, such as black ants and white jade snails (apple snails). Advertisements claimed that white jade snails have high nutritional value and delicious taste and are in short supply abroad and in coastal areas. In fact, white jade snails have no market and do not taste good either. Some were abandoned in the wild; because white jade snails reproduce extremely quickly and eat the leaves and stems of plants, they have already caused harm.
5. The scale must be moderate. Because specialty breeding requires large investment and market demand is small, and much of it is short-term behavior, rolling development should be adopted. Whether breeding ostriches, foxes, sika deer, or meat pigeons, there must be no mad rush, and the abnormal value of "speculating in breeding stock" must not be treated as commodity value, nor should a temporary shortage be treated as permanent scarcity. Do not look only at the present and treat breeding-stock prices as commodity prices.
6. Every commodity is valuable because it is rare, and "speculating in breeding stock" is only short-term behavior. Once scale is reached and the supply-demand ratio changes, the price changes too. For example, silkie chickens and wild ducks now cost almost the same as free-range chickens and domestic ducks. Due to many reasons, such as environmental conditions, changes in feed, shortened breeding cycles, and fat accumulation, very little of the natural flavor is retained, to the point that tasting it once is enough. Because specialty breeding households have a relatively low level of raising skills and lack knowledge of disease prevention, and because breeding stock is relatively expensive, most breeding involves recent crossbreeding, causing degeneration; the returns from specialty breeding are mostly unsatisfactory.
Several suggestions for specialty breeding
1. There must be a clear understanding of specialty breeding. Business departments should release accurate information and provide correct guidance. The market must be accurately identified, and market research must be done well; it must not be a case of starting first and looking for a market afterward. Price positioning must be accurate, and there must be an awareness of market risk. There must be no vagueness, and no making things up by saying in place A that a certain variety is in short supply in place B, or saying in place B that a certain variety is sold out in place A.
2. The scale must be moderate, and actions must be taken according to one's means. For specialty breeding, oversupply is no good, and if the quantity is too small and there is no scale, that is no good either. But do not seek excessive size and foreign-style grandeur, and do not choose projects blindly. The market demand should be clearly understood and forecasting done well. It must not be a case of "if you raise them, I will too," with everyone raising them, because that loses the meaning of specialty breeding and is bound to cause oversupply, bringing major economic losses.
3. Most people know relatively little about the raising techniques for specialty animals. Therefore, they must humbly learn the techniques. To bring animals to market early, they must not blindly pursue shortening the breeding cycle and lack the proper natural environment, which leads to the loss of the flavor of animal meat and a decline in fur quality. At the same time, attention must also be paid to the prevention and treatment of animal diseases and the selection and breeding of breeding animals.
To develop specialty breeding, relevant departments need to take the lead and follow the path of integrating trade, industry, and farming, with both breeding and processing, so that products gain added value and form a strong competitive force to break into the market. Only in this way can specialty breeding develop in a healthy and orderly manner.