The people of the Omnogov province in the South Gobi desert call it Arul. In Kazakhstan’s old capital, Almaty, it’s called Kourt. The Mauritanians, in the mean time, are producing a more palatable version that has started to find favour in the Western world. In India, most of us don’t even know it exists.
We are talking about camel milk. India, like all the places mentioned above, has a rich milk consuming tradition. But despite our national predilection for dairy, the milk produced by India’s one million humped inhabitants — the camels — is disregarded.
Health benefits
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, there are some 20 million camels worldwide producing 5.4 million tonnes of milk every year. Most of this is consumed locally — either by the camels’ offspring or the people who tend to them, who also happen to be among the poorest in the world.
These include the Raikas, a nomadic community spread out in Rajasthan, Gujarat and other parts of western India. Legend has it that Lord Shiva created the first Raika with the express purpose of caring for the camel, and they’ve been doing so for centuries. Its milk is the only recompense they seek.
The Raikas are also known to be the only section of the Indian population not affected by Type 1 diabetes because of the presence of a certain insulin-like protein in camel milk that is easier to digest. Said to be slightly saltier than cow’s milk, it is rich in iron and three times as rich in Vitamin C. It contains healthy amounts of lanolin, known to improve skin tone and camel milk is even said to keep impotency at bay.
However, the health benefits of camel milk have done little to improve its popularity in India. In 2008, the Rajasthan Cooperative Dairy Federationstarted selling camel milk in milk parlours but found few takers. Its taste is unfamiliar to people accustomed to buffalo or cow milk.
However, there is an abundance of supply. A lactating camel produces between 1,000 and 12,000 litres of milk in 8 to 18 months. In fact, there is a glut of camel milk in places where camels are reared.
The proof is in the cheese
In Mauritania, an impoverished country in West Africa where livestock outnumber people and camel milk is part of the staple diet, more than 50,000 tonnes of powdered milk is imported from Europe every year. Meanwhile, readily available camel milk is sold at the roadside in buckets, unsterilised and spoiling rapidly in the absence of facilities to pasteurise and distribute it.
British-born Nancy Abeiderrahmane’s milk dairy Tiviski in the capital Nouakchott has managed to bridge this gap to some extent, buying raw milk from some 450 local suppliers and selling a range of dairy products through 1,800 retail outlets. However, her most innovative move has been in finding a use for the surplus milk during the winter months when the demand for camel milk drops. It’s cheese to the rescue.
While traditional camel cheese-making practices have produced curd cheese (like cottage cheese), Abeiderrahmane, with the help of a French scientist, has found an enzyme to curdle camel’s milk (which does not curdle naturally) giving it the right consistency and a long shelf-life. The result is a soft cheese with a white crust, similar in appearance to the French Camembert but with a tangy aftertaste that has charmed stores like Harrods in London and upmarket delis in New York. Some even call it Camelbert.
The Indian scene
But why make a fuss about camel cheese? “Cheese is a concentration of all the goodness you can find in milk,” says Philippa Young of the What Took You So Long Foundation (WTYSLF), a trio of Hong-Kong based documentary filmmakers who are currently travelling the world, filming camel-rearing communities.
On a recent visit to Rajasthan to meet the Raikas, Young and her colleagues Alicia Sully and Sebastian Lindstrom found that the community has never made cheese or even heard of it. The Raikas have a more pressing issue to worry about — keeping their camels alive.
According to surveys by Lokhit Pashu Palak Sansthan (LPPS), a livestock protection NGO, there was a 50% decline in the camel population between 1995 and 2004 in Rajasthan. Ilse Kohler Rollefson, project coordinator at LPPS, explains, “Traditional grazing lands are being usurped for irrigation, army testing grounds or nature parks.”
With oil reserves being found in the Thar desert, oil companies may be the next barrier that the Raikas will face. However, as WTYSLF would like to believe, camel cheese can be the new oil that could help small-scale camel rearers preserve their way of life. “There is already a booming camel cheese industry in China and East Africa,” points out Young.
Back in Rajasthan, the LPPS has pioneered camel milk ice-cream which is made in a small unit in Jaisalmer. But Rollefson feels cheese is still a long shot. “It is not very economical to make cheese from camel milk, plus cheese eating is not an Indian custom.
Logistics are also a problem since camel herds are migratory. Making cheese therefore needs considerable infrastructure investment which neither the government nor private parties have been willing to provide.”
Currently, the LPPS has restricted its commercial activities to creating dung paper and clothing from camel wool, revealing that these initiatives have been more successful than milk marketing in providing steady incomes to small-scale livestock keepers.
However, experts in the field believe that necessity will ensure that camel milk isn’t ignored for long. This is especially the case in India, where we are heading towards a cow milk shortage.
“The potential 3,00,000 litres that can be produced daily from
Rajasthan’s she-camels could potentially help fill this milk deficit,” says Young, adding that since camel milk is anti-bacterial, its cheese doesn’t grow mould and what you get is a mild, fresh-tasting cheese that the Indian palate could get used to.
With the National Research Center on Camels in Bikaner having reportedly developed a soft cheese for which they’re currently seeking a patent, camel cheese might soon become a reality for the Indian market. And once private players recognise camel milk’s commercial potential as a ‘green’ and a healthier dairy alternative, camel milk could indeed become the new oil.
But whether this spells a brighter future for the camels themselves and their caretakers, such as the Raikas, remains to be seen.
The world’s going camels
Dubai-based Camelicious, owned by Dubai's ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,has cleared EU health regulations and is soon to become the first major exporter of camel milk products to the 27-nation bloc.
Al Nassma Chocolate Company in Dubai is the first company in the world to produce camel milk chocolates. According to its website, the camel milk is blended with Bourbon vanilla, acacia honey and highest grade cocoa beans.
Al Ain Dairy in Abu Dhabi, financed by one of the royal families of the UAE, has introduced camel milk ice cream as a healthy alternative to regular ice-cream. With low fat content and loads of calcium, the ice-cream is safe for people with lactose intolerance.
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