Camels are the preferred livestock species in extremely dry zones, enabling individuals to live in otherwise uninhabitable areas. Camels’ virtues include: going without water for days without decreasing feed intake and milk yield; utilizing feed that is unpalatable to other species; an ability to carry heavy loads over long distances; and low susceptibility to disease. They also ensure a sustainable livelihood for their owners by generating milk for subsistence and providing income from the sale of excess animals, while constituting a source of capital accumulation.
Camels benefit an important IFAD target group: poor pastoralists. However, pastoral systems and their communities are faced with a set of interconnected constraints deriving both from the constant need to increase income and from ecological pressures. Pastoralists are now being forced into more marginal areas due to population pressures and restrictions on their grazing rights. Here, there are greater risks of disease to camels and a lack of access to basic human amenities, including water and health facilities. Such areas typically are far from markets, leading to the waste of excess milk (beyond that needed by offspring and herders’ families), camel hair and hides, which could each be a source of additional income. As pastoralists’ need for cash increases, they tend to keep a higher proportion of small ruminants and cattle because they command higher market prices than camels. This reduces the stability of the ecosystem and results in a vicious circle of environmental degradation. As poor pastoralists become poorer, they are often forced to sell their few remaining animals to large herders. To break this syndrome and to avoid working as hired labourers or migrating to urban unemployment, herder pastoralists are looking for new ways to utilize their animals.
An
analysis is needed to identify the viability of improving meat and dairy
production as well as other investment opportunities that will assist
poor pastoralists while simultaneously preserving their ecosystem. More
intensive feeding of camels by traders or butchers within city boundaries
would enhance the value of camels before slaughter. However, little information
exists on changes in carcass composition during the feeding process, and
there is still a negative image of camel meat that must be overcome to
increase its market value. Developing opportunities to increase camel
milk production by using concentrates, practising early weaning and reducing
calving intervals, as is done in Tunisia, could have positive economic
benefits for herder pastoralists. However, further research is needed
on the feasibility of transferring these practices elsewhere, on whether
camels can compete with other dairy animals, and on a range of other questions
concerning camel-based production systems. Furthermore, because herders
have lost access to traditional grazing grounds and tend to stay closer
to urban centres, it might be possible to organize groups of camel owners
for milk collection and link them up with dairy plants for activities
such as milk collection, milk processing and cheese making.
CARDN was started in 1991, but operations began only after the signing in 1996 of a contract with the Arab Centre for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD) as the executing agency. The network operates through national coordinators in 10 member countries. A General Assembly and an Executive Committee with country representatives – mainly at ministerial level – provide recommendations for the network's operations. The coordinator of the network operates from ACSAD headquarter, in Damascus.
The general objective is to ensure continuing and sustainable use of dry-land range by camel keeping by mainly non-sedentary pastoralists, avoiding further degradation of land and vegetation, thereby assuring continuation of the pastoralist production system, reducing its risks, improving living conditions and alleviating poverty. The project stimulates research and development activities for improving pastoralist systems in dry lands, with particular emphasis on camel husbandry.
Research activities
The various research activities include:
- identifying constraints and research needs in camel husbandry and range use;
- assisting with trials and testing of marketing of milk and live animals;
- establishing pilot operations with pastoralists for implementing innovations in range management, camel husbandry and product handling, processing and marketing;
- assisting national agricultural research systems (NARS) and institutions active in research on camels in member countries, through networking activities, documentation, identification of camel research priorities, upgrading laboratories and research stations, and support for research projects and development activities to improve pastoralist systems; and
- providing basic and general equipment to enable laboratories and research stations to carry out specific research projects.
Communications and support services
Activities include:
- administration of the network and its budget, allocating and disbursing funds;
- collecting and collating into a databank information relevant for camel production and development; and
- establishing means of communication among pastoralist organizations within and between countries.
An Internet website with the corresponding hyperlinks could develop into the main source of up-to-date information (e.g. "CAMELNET") for network participants, and even beyond this circle. However, as access to the web remains problematic in all the participating countries, CD-ROMs will be produced and distributed to enhance the accessibility of the information for all member countries.
Capacity building and information exchange
This involves:
- compiling and analysing recent experience in conservation and use by livestock of dryland range, and formulating corresponding policy guidelines for use in member countries;
- developing and adapting training material in range management and animal husbandry;
- establishing and supporting with pastoralist organizations, projects on range management, camel husbandry and product processing;
- training on specific topics, such as laboratory techniques to be applied in specified programmes, socio-economic survey procedures, data analysis, system analysis and modelling; and
- possibly organizing workshops for exchanging experience among countries at different levels (technicians, scientists, and planners-cum-decision-makers).
The project is ongoing. The first phase of the programme concentrated on creating awareness about camels and on institution building. Several countries strengthened awareness by starting separate units for camel husbandry and development, and by creating socio-economic profiles of camel herders. The latter revealed the importance of camels to pastoralists in fragile agro-ecologies and identified the constraints facing herder communities. In this period of institution building, countries produced socio-economic survey data, research on the development of camel meat and production, and other studies. CARDN also compiled and documented the published scientific literature on camels; prioritized its own needs, including upgrading 17 laboratories; and supported 42 research projects, which are widely cited. The network has also published a Camel Newsletter and three technical reports, and was to launch a journal of camel studies in 2000.
