India must steer its camel economy over the hump
The secret to reviving India’s camel economy lies in supporting its ancestral camel herding communities
The International Year of Camelids will conclude on March 31, 2025. It succeeded in turning the spotlight on these animals that are a godsend for food security in times of the deepening climate crisis. The world’s camel population has more than tripled in the last 50 years, rising from less than 13 million in 1961 to an estimated 40 million now. In this general trend of growing camel popularity, India stands out as the one country where camel numbers have declined dramatically, falling from more than 1.1 million in 1970 to around 200,000 now. This represents an almost 90% reduction over the course of half a century.
The reasons are largely cultural, but an unsupportive policy environment is also at work. Contrary to the situation in other countries where they are an important source of nutrition, camels in India were never used for food, but almost exclusively as a means of transportation; and demand for their services as draught animals has gradually petered out since the 1990s.
But the straw that really broke the camel’s back was a law enacted in 2016 that prohibits its export across the borders of Rajasthan where it has been declared the state animal. This legal provision was meant to protect the animal but eliminated the few remaining income opportunities for Rajasthan’s camel breeders, leading them to abandon their ancestral occupation in droves.
India is not alone when it comes to a rapid fall in camel numbers, but other countries that saw this have successfully managed to reverse the trend. One example is the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where camel population numbers dipped dangerously low in the 1960s, when motorised transport gradually became more common.
The animal might have drifted into oblivion, had it not been for the wisdom of the ruler of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, who recognised the need of his people for a symbol of national identity. He focused on supporting camel racing which has a long tradition among the Bedouins, and by now, this has ballooned into a huge industry that acts as a mechanism for sharing oil wealth through its huge prize money.
The UAE model may not be appropriate for India, but we can take a cue from developments in Central Asia. Kazakhstan had less than 100,000 camels in 1998 but by now they have more than doubled to close to 250,000. Its government subsidised the setting up of factories for manufacturing camel milk powder for export to China. China almost doubled its camel population between 2009 and 2021, from a low of 220,000 to more than 460,000, by declaring Alashan, one of its administrative units in Inner Mongolia, as “camel country” and marketing the products of free-ranging camels as green and ecological, while also supporting camel-related tourism.
In India too, we can turn the situation around, although not through the routine schemes applied to other farm animals, such as by the National Livestock Mission. Camels are not really farm animals: They wither away if kept in confinement and thrive only in nomadic systems where they have the freedom to move around and browse on trees and shrubs. According to the traditional herding knowledge of the Raika, a herding community from Rajasthan, camels forage on 36 different trees, shrubs and other plants. All these plants are known for their healing properties in Ayurveda.
The biodiverse vegetation that camels feed on is part of what makes India’s traditional camel management system unique in the world. Another important angle is the knowledge and values of the country’s camel herding communities that look at camels as family members — an antithesis to the industrial mode of farm animal production — and keep them as part of the landscape so that they function as desert gardeners that spread seeds and support the germination of hardy desert trees.
While conserving desert biodiversity, they also generate camel milk that provides a unique taste experience and is replete with health-enhancing phytochemicals.
The secret to reviving India’s camel economy lies in supporting its ancestral camel herding communities to combine the conservation of camels and desert biodiversity to produce camel milk which is a nutritional treasure and gastronomic rarity. Ethical camel milk can become one of India’s USPs. This is what we should thrive for, as the proof of concept already exists.
Ilse Köhler-Rollefson has researched and worked with Rajasthan’s camel breeders for more than 30 years. She is co-founder of Camel Charisma, a social enterprise aimed at conserving Rajasthan’s camels.The views expressed are personal