With the continuous increase of China’s population, the per capita arable land area is continuously shrinking, leading to a serious reality of粮食 shortages and an increasingly sharp conflict between humans and livestock for粮食. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on developing粮食-saving animal husbandry that uses少粮 or no粮食, and to develop more grass-fed animal breeding to缓冲 the conflict between humans and livestock for粮食. This is a livestock industry transformation project with important strategic significance. Many wild animals are prohibited from being bred and eaten, but wild animals have always been delicacies pursued by people. Bamboo rat meat is delicious, comparable to masked palm civet, and the bamboo rat feeds on plant roots and crop stalks, requiring less精料, making it green food with increasing market demand.
Bamboo rat has high nutritional value; breeding bamboo rats effectively protects wild animals, develops grass-fed animals, increases income and meets people’s needs, holding profound significance for ecological sustainable development. Currently, most bamboo rat breeding in China focuses on developing breeding stock. Bamboo rat meat is not yet common on ordinary people’s tables like pork, chicken, beef, and mutton, but bamboo rats have entered the消费市场 of large and medium-sized cities and towns in southern China, with demand increasing at an annual rate of 3%~5%.
In Guangdong, Hong Kong, Guangxi, Shanghai, Hunan, Zhejiang, Fujian, Sichuan and other areas, the sales of commercial bamboo rats have been optimistic, prices remain stable, with selling prices for breeders between 80~140 yuan per kilogram. Especially before and after the Spring Festival, bamboo rat sales are stronger, prices rise, and supply is tight. According to incomplete statistics, Guangdong, Hainan, Hong Kong, Fujian, Shanghai and other places consume over ten thousand tons of bamboo rats annually.
Currently, most bamboo rat farms sell breeding rats mainly; meat bamboo rats cannot meet the rapidly growing market demand, indicating large development space for commercial rats. Moreover, since breeders mainly sell breeding rats, there is a certain conflict between the supply of breeding and commercial rats. In other words, if breeders sell primarily breeding rats, the supply of commercial rats is small; similarly, if more are raised as commercial rats, breeding rat supply decreases.
Due to breeding technology, this conflict will not change in the short term. After a few years, when breeding rat demand eases, commercial rat supply will slowly catch up. Therefore, meat commercial bamboo rats cannot meet market needs in the next 10 years. Most breeders still rely on family scattered farming, with little mastery of breeding and disease prevention technology, low degree of intensive production, and insufficient commercial supply.
The bamboo rat product trading market is basically in a spontaneous and decentralized stage; the production sector has not yet formed规模 or leading processing enterprises. Future deep processing development requires a large number of commercial bamboo rats, so the prospect of developing bamboo rat breeding is good.