Livestock Futures

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For the 1st time ever, a global coalition of camel milk consumers, experts & dairy producers from 35 countries will raise a virtual glass for camel milk. This is the first-time camel milk is on the global World Milk Day agenda since it began 20 years ago. Sales in camel milk are growing, as is interest, in this more natural, climate friendly and allergy free healthy dairy option, both as a stand-alone milk and as an active ingredient in camel milk products.

The global camel milk products market size was valued at USD 10.2 billion in 2019.[1]  Camel milk is highly sought after for its anti-inflammatory, strong protective proteins, anti-microbial and nutritious value and works well for lactose intolerance. 

“The global camel market is projected to grow at more than 10% for the next decade, so more camel milk in the future!” said Dr. Bernard Faye, veterinarian and chair of ISOCARD, the International Society of Camelid Research and Development.

The unique health benefits of camel milk:

Camel milk works across a range of physical and behavioral issues, making it a highly effective alternative.  “Parents of children with autism remain a key and growing market, as studies show the milk is safe and effective and can lead to behavioral and medical improvements,” stated Christina Adams, author of several publications on camel milk and editorial board member of the Journal of Camel Science.

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“The fatty acids in camel milk are also better for human hearts as they contain more mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids than cow milk. Low in allergenic proteins, camel milk is also the best alternative to human milk and for children with severe food allergies or eczema,” said Dr Tahereh Mohammadabadi, Associate Professor, Khuzestan Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University, Iran.

A growing market for camel milk

The Middle East and Africa dominate with more than 60% of the global camel livestock revenue. Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya consume the most per capita in the region. Saudi Arabia is the largest market in the world at around 33 litres per year, per capita. North America is expected to grow the fastest as consumers with diabetes switch to camel milk to better control sugar levels.

The cow dairy industry is known to be a well-organized and powerful lobby force. Until now the camel milk private sector has been mostly established in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Mauritania. But with climate change and growing consumer concerns about ethics and farming, camel herders and camel milk producers are expanding worldwide.

For the past 50 years, camels are the second-fastest growing herbivorous livestock in the world, after buffalo, and has grown annually significantly by 4.5 % in the past decade in Africa (FAO).[2] The Middle East and the Horn of Africa camels lead the charge, as the second-fastest growing herbivore livestock in the world after buffalo (FAO).

Regions in Africa are switching to camels even where they never were before, e.g. Uganda and Tanzania « There is so much tradition and long-term use across the world, but we need more scientific research on camel in general  and especially on camel milk” Says Mohammed Bengoumi, Tunisia based FAO camel expert. 

Facing climate change on the equator in Kenya and Australia, more commercial dairy farmers are diversifying or switching to camels as they do better in tough, drought-ridden, hot climates and browse on prickly bushes and shrubs that most farm animals avoid.

“The camel milk industry is undervalued but could rival other foreign exchange earners in Kenya. Drought and the fact that 89% of Kenya is classified as arid and semi-arid land means many are shifting from cows to camels, even in southern Kenya,” said Dr James Chomba Njanja, Vice Chair of the Kenya Camel Association.

Every year an estimated 3 million tons of camel milk are officially sold and consumed around the world. But the true production level could be double that, at around 5-6 million tons per year. A fact of note is that 70% camel milk is consumed by the camel owners and never reaches the market.

“The camel saved humans for generations in the desert.  In arid areas and hot weather over 45C, we see cows suffer as they need 8-10 times more water than camels to produce 1 litre of milk,” said Dr. Abdul Raziq Kakar, a UAE based camel dairy specialist from Pakistan and Camels4All blogger.

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Camel herding nomads who have traditionally bred camels for centuries are also benefiting from the interest in camel milk. “Supporting decentralized camel farming through innovative models is a great opportunity to reduce poverty and to better food security in some of the poorest parts of the world,” concluded Dr. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson, project coordinator of the League for Pastoral Peoples. 

For all these climate friendly, natural and immune-boosting reasons, please raise a virtual or real glass of camel milk to celebrate this World Milk Day!

#worldmilkday #enjoydairy #camelmilk

For information, photos and comment in Germany and India, contact me at ilse.koehlerroll@gmail.comxxxx

For information, photos and interviews with camel milk experts worldwide: Samantha Bolton

+41 79 239 23 66 – samanthabolton@gmail.com – Twitter: @camel_wild  and  @sambolton007

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[1]https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/camel-milk-products-market

[2]The global milk market grew at a steady pace of 3.89% per year between 2011 and 2018 (FAO)

Pastoralists are somehow always on the defensive, being told that they need to change their ways, are backward, unproductive, cause desertification, and harm the climate. Sigh! Nothing could be further from the truth. At the moment it’s the  IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Report on Climate Change and Land that is causing a lot of consternation among pastoralists who follow such issues. Its contents are summed up by major media in headlines such as “Eat less meat: UN climate-change report calls for change to human diet“. Although this headline is from the topnotch scientific journal Nature (!), it totally misrepresents what the IPCC report actually says! Shocking, indeed – whatever happened to scientific standards?

Pastoralists, in Africa and elsewhere, I want you to know:

1. What the IPCC report is actually saying is “animal-sourced food produced in resilient, sustainable & low-GHG emission systems present major opportunities for adaptation & mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health”. Nowhere does it mention that anybody should eat less meat. It does make some references to “better management of grazing and of livestock”, but it leaves open what precisely is meant by that.
2. While ruminants continue to be blamed for their methane emissions, a big trend among the liberal elite in parts of the US, is to support ‘restorative grazing‘ to counter climate change by supporting carbon sequestration. For example, multi-billionaire and democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer is raising free ranging cattle on his ranch as a tool to avert climate change: Now ‘restorative grazing’ and pastoralism don’t have exactly the same goals – one is oriented at carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation, the other at food security. But both follow the same principles, and pastoralism has survived and kept the environment intact for almost 10,000 years or so, so maybe it could teach restorative grazing a thing or two?
3. A host of research shows how important pastoralist products are for our health. This recent article by Fred Provenza et al, published in Frontiers in Nutrition elegantly summarizes it: “the health of livestock, humans, and environments is tied to plant diversity—and associated phytochemical richness—across landscapes. Health is enhanced when livestock forage on phytochemically rich landscapes, is reduced when livestock forage on simple mixture or monoculture pastures or consume high-grain rations in feedlots, and is greatly reduced for people who eat highly processed diets. “

4.In an increasingly resource constrained world, pastoralism/grazing is the way to go, because it directly converts roughage into high value protein. We can no longer afford to  use the intermediate step of growing feed for livestock on arable land, usually with a lot of fossil fuel expenditure, and we can not afford cutting down more rainforest for growing soybeans. Its the law of thermodynamics that comes to the fore here, as beautifully explained in a somewhat older article by USDA scientist R. K. Heitschmidt et al entitled “Ecosystems, sustainability, and animal agriculture”. Please read this eye-opener from which I only want to quote this sentence:..”when properly managed, rangeland agriculture is fully sustainable, having gone on long before the discovery of fossil fuels, and it will, without doubt, go on long after the depletion of fossil fuels.”

There are certainly a lot of problems for pastoralists, and I am not saying that land degradation or overgrazing does not occur. But the principles of pastoralism are sound and ecological. Lets hope policy makers will recognize this in time and give pstoral development priority. The IPCC Report rightly emphasizes that there is a connection between climate, soil degradation and livelihoods.

Thanks to Susan Macmillan and Dr. Sara Place for alerting me to important references!

The livestock world is up in arms about the EAT-Lancet Report  that was launched on 18^th January in Oslo and recommends drastic reductions in the consumption of meat, especially red meat. It is the outcome of a committee of “more than 30 world-leading scientists from across the globe to reach a scientific consensus that defines a healthy and sustainable diet” and recommends a plant based diet and almost complete elimination of red meat from our menues. The initiative goes back to a Norwegian billionaire with engagement in the animal rights movement, and one of its collaborators is FRESH, a consortium of global food giants. This includes even those who currently build their riches on the meat economy, such as Cargill and Tyson.

The report is being savaged and ridiculed on social media, with the pack being led by Frédéric Leroy, a Belgian professor who has untangled the special interests involved behind the initiative in an article published by the European Food Agency: A powerful action against meat?   Many livestock people have been in a frenzy, enumerating the significant nutritional benefits of red meat and pointing out errors in the report. And the EAT-Lancet report definitely has major weaknesses. It is prescriptive and top down, western centric, and promotes a diet that is not feasible for most citizens in the world.

But on the other hand,  the fact that the EAT-Lancet Report draws attention to the planetary boundaries of our food system is most welcome, the more so as these are being pretty much ignored in on-going UN processes and not tackled anywhere else, although GASL, the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock , is making an attempt.

What I miss on the part of the “livestock lobby” is a more nuanced consideration of how meat is produced, instead of its blanket endorsement.  Some introspection and  analysis of how we got to the current vegan assault would be very much in order.  Because it MATTERS how animals are kept – whether confined and pumped full with concentrate, or moving, foraging on their own, in a herd! It matters to the animals, to the consumer, to animal and human health, and to the planet!

For too long, the large majority of animal scientists – with a few notable exceptions – have subscribed to what I term the “efficiency paradigm”, the belief in “sustainable intensification” that reduces animals to input-output models and basically leaves no room for animal welfare, besides ignoring the need for a circular livestock economy. The FAO has had a big part in this, on one hand raising awareness about livestock’s long shadow (good), but on the other hand uncritically promoting the stance that “we need to double livestock production by 2050,” and spreading the mantra that this has to be achieved through higher natural resource use efficiency.

While the ILRI white paper for the World Economic Forum in Davos makes many good points by emphasizing the crucial role of livestock for the poor, it talks about industrial systems as option. In the long term, these systems will be phased out and be replaced with artificial meat/clean meat – or at least this is the future that the food companies are preparing for, and maybe one of the reasons for them supporting “plant-based” diets.  There are of course  still many question marks about “clean meat”, as summarized in another paper about alternative protein sources prepared for the World Economic Forum in Davos.

In all this clamour, some seminal new research is not getting the attention it deserves.   A team of reputed researchers led by a scientist from Wageningen University in a paper entitled “Defining a land boundary for sustainable livestock consumption” points at a solution  that challenges the beliefs of both vegans and FAO:  They propose that if we stop industrial livestock farming and feed cultivation, replacing it with “low-cost livestock” that is fed with either waste food or with biomass from non-arable land, while at the same time reducing consumption in western countries, there would still be scope for raising protein consumption in Africa and Asia. Their conclusion is that trying to sustain the human population on plant food alone would actually require MORE land, as without livestock  crop by-products would not be utilized for food.

This conclusion is a clear endorsement of pastoralism and damning to the “efficiency paradigm”. The direction for the future of livestock is clear: Support pastoralists with their humane livestock production systems to continue managing non-arable zones for food production, biodiversity conservation and as carbon sinks. In arable areas, limit livestock to what can be sustained with local crop waste. Eliminate industrial systems and replace them with artificial or clean meat – if it works. Perfect!

When I recently had the opportunity to travel to Saudi-Arabia, I jumped at the chance. After all, this country is the cradle of camel culture – the place where the human-dromedary relationship was first forged, more than 3000 years ago, and resulted in an amazing technological innovation: warfare from camel back! It was in the battle of Qarqar in 853 B.C. that the ‘Arabs’  first appeared as a distinct group in world history as camel mounted warriors that fought against the Assyrian king Shalmanesar III.

So the emergence of Arab civilization and the domestication of the camel are closely interlinked and cannot be separated from each other. I have always been spellbound by Bedouin camel culture has always enthralled me and I have long been a fan of the explorers, such as Anne Blunt and Alois Musil, that described its fondness and love of camels.

The trip was brought about by my archaeological first life and provided me the incredible fortune to visit some of the world’s most stunning archaeological monuments that have so far been hidden and off limits to foreigners, with the exception of a few intrepid explorers, the likes of Ibn Battuta and Charles Doughty. I am talking about Al Ula in Northern Saudi-Arabia, the site of many thousands of rock drawings which provide testimony of the ecological and cultural history of the Arabian peninsula over the last 7000 years or so. This is also where the Nabatean site of Madain Saleh is located as well as ruins from a range of civilizations.   The area is presently being developed into a world class tourist destination by the Royal Commission for Al Ula in a massive multi-disciplinary and visionary effort whose first task is to record the cultural and natural riches.

Our journey focused on rock drawings and on the way to Al Ula we stopped at Jubbah, an assemblage of rock formations near Hail which are literally covered in etchings from different periods, mostly of animals. Based on their style, and in combination with various scientific dating methods, archaeologists can tell from which period they are, and the types of animals represented allow us to deduct about the changing ecology of the area. During the Neolithic period – New Stone Age – the environment was clearly much more fertile and similar to what we find in the savannahs of Eastern Africa today: there were lions, baboons, kudus and ostriches. People herded cattle with long, circling horns very similar to those kept by the Dinka people in Southern Sudan today. But after the Neolithic, cattle disappear and camels become abundant. Their appearance is associated with Thamudic inscriptions – Thamudic being a precursor to Arabic.

This replacement of cattle by camels reminds me very much of the processes that are currently going on in Eastern Africa where previously cattle oriented cultures, such as the Samburu and Maasai are switching to camel husbandry because it provides greater food security in times of climate change.  In both East and West Africa, the camel distribution range is shifting southwards, as part of a global trend towards increasing importance. Camel milk is gaining recognition in Europe and the US for its health enhancing qualities, but camels should also be of interest to the general livestock sector which worries much about its emissions of greenhouse gases. Camels emit less methane than other ruminants, so it is  kind of curious that they are not getting more attention from development agencies.

Travelling with archaeologists, my excursion provided only brief opportunities to see live camels, mostly from a distance.

But the glimpses I caught confirmed that the Bedouin still love their camels, even if they are no longer economically dependent on them, and that these are  just as friendly and inquisitive as those kept by the Raika in India. A highlight of my trip was the encounter with a Bedouin near Jubbah who was feeding dates to his herd.

It is very encouraging to know that Saudi-Arabia is set to once again highlight the role of camels in civilization – which is also the theme of the current issue of Aramco World Magazine –  through the third edition of the Abdul Aziz Camel Festival scheduled to take place near Riyadh in February 2019. I really hope to be back!