When I was growing up in Jaipur, I was fascinated by camels. The way they walked, the way they chewed and the supreme disdain with which they seemed to regard the world. I could watch them for hours. Then, one fateful day, I went too close to a camel with a cold. Let’s just say that the experience kind of drowned my interest in camels. I’d nothing to do with the beasts until quite recently, when I met someone who was as crazy about camels as could be.
“Camels,” Ilse Köhler-Rollefson declared, “are beautifully adapted to the desert, and I believe camel rearing can be made commercially viable — with just a little imagination!” She works with Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPSS) in Rajasthan, an organisation for Rajasthan’s pastoralists whose aims are protecting indigenous knowledge and people-centred livestock development. Camels are central to LPSS’s scheme of things, and the organisation is promoting camel rearing as well as conservation.
I didn’t even realise camels ever needed protecting, but Ilse assured me otherwise. India’s camel population has fallen by half in the last decade. The advent of faster transport in the desert had caused a fall in the demand for these humped creatures. The Raika, once keepers of the royal camel stables, were actually reduced to selling even female camels for their meat. A more insidious reason for the decline of camel populations, Ilse said, was the disappearance of grazing grounds that traditionally supported camel herds.
The sharp spike in fuel prices in the last two years has caused a resurgence of interest in camels. “We’ve noticed that lately, farmers in Rajasthan are once again using camels for haulage instead of gas-guzzling tractors,” said she, “undoubtedly, camels are the cheapest and most efficient form of transport there.” Camel prices have, consequently, trebled in the last two years: “earlier, a camel cost as much as a goat. Today, a camel is worth three goats,” said Ilse.
Camels, said Ilse, are much more than just ships of the desert. Their milk can potentially provide herders with an additional source of income. LPSS is developing camel dairies and plans to actively market camel milk and dairy products. Long prized in Rajasthan for its health benefits, camel milk is reportedly three times as rich in Vitamin C as compared to cow’s milk, and ten times as rich in iron. Low in fat, it’s great for people with Type-I diabetes. Some say it is beneficial in the treatment of a range of other illnesses, including ulcers, tuberculosis and even breast cancer. Rajasthani folklore suggests camel milk even cures impotence.
“It’s also very tasty,” said Ilse, “and so are camel milk products!” In West Asia, one can eat camel milk cheese (dubbed ‘Camelbert’), and camel milk chocolate.
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The Rajasthan Co-operative Dairy Federation recently launched packaged camel milk (by the way, it is sporadically available in the Saras dairy outlet in New Delhi’s Bikaner House). “We need better refrigeration technology and pasteurisers before we can market it on a bigger scale,” said Ilse. Last year, Ilse and her team made experimental camel milk ice cream at the Pushkar Fair. “It was so delicious that people came back for more well after its novelty had worn off,” said she. They plan to be there this year too, this time with more ice cream, and hold your breath, camel dung paper products! “Paper from camel dung is beautiful, with the long fibres of the thorny bushes that camels eat,” said she, “come to the Pushkar fair this November, and you’ll be able to taste the ice cream and see the paper too!”
I’m actually thinking of going.