In my last blog, I concluded that probably, because of their biological/physiological characteristics, camels are not suited for management in large confined holdings where they can’t graze/browse, but are fed with cultivated feed. Such enterprises face problems making a profit.
So what is the way forward for camel dairying? This of course depends on the local situation, the availability of land, accessibility of markets, and cultural attitude towards milk. But I feel very strongly that camel dairying must go along with efforts to regenerate land and restore landscapes (even if on a small scale) so that camels can forage and have something to do and explore, rather than just standing around, be bored and their existence reduced to synthesizing milk.
I call camels ‘desert gardeners”, because they disseminate and support the germination of the trees and shrubs that they feed on.
Have a look at the photo above. It is an abandoned paddock in which we kept some camels a few years ago until we realized that they had to move (we could not control their mange) and gave them to the care of a Raika herder. At the time, there was only bare ground – but now, a few years later, all these shrubs have come up on their own, and – since the photo was taken – grown into a dense jungle-type of scrub – that actually needs a bit of browsing by camels or goats, at least for a limited time. It represents a perfect circular system! And underscores the ecological need for camels – and other herbivores – to keep moving, for their own health and that of the vegetation.
The ecology of camels is remarkably underresearched. There were longitudinal studies in the 1960s/70s by Hilde Gauthier-Pilters in the Western Sahara, and in the 1980s/90s by Birgit Dörges and Jürgen Heucke of feral camels in Australia. Gauthier-Pilters noted that camels do not destroy desert vegetation because they disperse widely and take only one bite from a plant before moving on. Doerges and Heucke reported minimal negative impact of the camels they observed although these stayed in the same (large) area over years.
Since then, there has been hardly any research on camel ecology. Camel pastoralists have lots of observations and are goldmines of information, but this body of knowledge is only sporadically documented. I have noticed that, in India, their observations often refute those of forest officials who blame camels for destroying vegetation, for instance in the Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary and among the mangroves at the coast of Kutch. The Raika emphasize that browsing by camels has the same effect as pruning, causing trees to branch out and develop denser foliage. They also note that camels never go back to the same shrub on the next day, but leave it alone for longer intervals. With respect to mangroves, the herders believe that camels play a positive role and support regeneration by stomping the seeds into the ground. We need unbiased scientific research to understand and validate pastoralist knowledge before it is too late.
What we really must embark on is accompanying camel dairying initiatives with efforts to protect and regenerate the kind of landscapes or browsing patches that camels feel at home in. If camels have the option of at least temporarily (part of the day, or seasonally) forage on natural vegetation, it will be beneficial for their well-being and it will also benefit the quality of their milk due to the phytochemicals that desert adapted camel forage plants are rich in, it will support carbon sequestration, create habitats for other animals, boost biodiversity – a multi-win situation! Silvopastoralism, the integration of livestock with forests, is big in South America – we need to take a slice from there and adapt it to camel countries!
And while I am here, I feel obliged to promote the Raika herders whose camels provide the milk for our company Camel Charisma. According to their belief, camels browse on 36 different forage plants. All of these are known for their therapeutic qualities and described in the Ayurveda, India’s ancient medicine system. Imagine the goodness of this milk!
All camel milk should be like that – produced by happy camels that have the option of going to a ‘park’ where they can stroll around and take a bite from a tree as to their liking. If we manage to instil this approach into our camel community, ratherb than tryig to compete with the cow dairy sector, then we will have won and carved out a unique path into the future for our favourite animal!
Lets strive for this in the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026 that starts tomorrow!
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