The increasing demand for emu oil over the last two to three years is driven by growing usage in the natural health/cosmetic industry, and a greater number of health conscious consumers becoming aware of the therapeutic benefits of the oil.

Ostriches have been around for 120 million years, but commercial farming has only taken place in the last 200. These farms have often been referred to as "the farms of the future" because of the large variety of possible products, but successes are rare.

Following lively development in the early and mid-nineties, the global ostrich population has dropped again. Is there still a future for commercial ostrich production?

"Marketing of Ostriches" was the theme of the first International meeting of the World Ostrich Association. The event took place in Chile and was mainly focussed on emerging Latin American producers.

Zimbabwe used to be one of the man ostrich producers. But now, due to government policy, many farms have been closed down and production as well as export has dropped to an unusually low level.

Commercial farming of African ostriches in Germany continues to be a controversial subject with regard to the aspect of animal protection. Those against it mainly argue that the wet and chilly weather in our latitudes affects the animals' welfare. According to them, artificial breeding results in impairment of the entire reproductive biology and, along with the fact that the young are not reared by the parent animals, has to be seen as an issue of animal welfare.

The ostrich is obviously extremely well adapted to the climatic environments prevailing in the African regions in which the species is indigenous and tolerates well hot arid conditions and cooler wet subtropical zones (Sauer and Sauer 1966b). Stewart (1994) asserts that the birds are very hardy and "can be successfully bred and reared in environmental extremes from desert heat to winter snows."