Game-meat dealers imported the equivalent of 25,000 deer carcases last year to one of the ancestral homes of Red deer.
Scotland has just 30 commercial deer farms but produces a large volume of venison from traditional game hunting.
Production of venison in Scotland is 2500-3000 tonnes a year but only 50t comes from commercial farms.
All deer for slaughter have to be trucked to English plants.
There is so much reluctance to convert to deer farming that the European Union and the Scottish Government have backed a Scottish Rural Development Programme to encourage landowners to consider the alternatives.
The Deer Farm and Park Demonstration Project is located on the farm of Ali Loder, in Culquoich, near Strathdon, Aberdeenshire.
Loder, the British Deer Farmers Association president, said the pressure on deer habitats from forestry had resulted in a decline of wild venison production at a time when consumers were switching on to the benefits of the healthy, low-cholesterol, lean red meat.
Deer farming had not been part of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy scheme until now, he said.
The infrastructure requirements of fencing and handling facilities tended to be expensive and farmed deer prices still had premiums because of scarcity.
On 80ha behind fences Loder farms 160 hinds and finishes all of their calves, the males for slaughter and the females for sale.
Fawn birth is in May or June and animals are finished at about 17 months, with stag carcases weighing 65 kilograms.
Waitrose pays farmers a minimum of £5.30 a kilogram, which is close to NZ$700 an animal.
Loder said his local Inverurie supermarket was selling NZ loin medallions for £32/kg.
