India must steer its camel economy over the hump

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.

- Ilse Köhler-Rollefson

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.

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.