Nutritional standards for the sale of camel milk, issued for the first time by the government, are a huge threat to the nascent dairy industry.
THE FOOD Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), the country’s apex food regulator, has passed an order that can nip a promising dairy industry in the bud. On November 29 last year, FSSAI issued and enforced, for the first time, interim standards for the sale of camel milk. Scientists say the standards are too stringent to be implemented.
As per the standards, raw, pasteurised, boiled, flavoured and sterilised camel milk should have minimum 3 per cent fat and 6.5 per cent solids-not-fat (SNF). “The minimum 3 per cent standard is not practical,” says Raghvendar Singh, Principal Scientist (Animal Biochemistry) at the National Research Centre on Camel (NRCC). The Bikaner based institution comes under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
Since the sale of camel milk has always been part of the informal sector, there are no official figures available, but the business is thriving in states like Rajasthan and Gujarat. “Camel milk is not consumed by the masses, but is in huge demand for its medicinal properties, particularly among people who suffer from diabetes and liver diseases,” says Hitesh Rathi, founder and director, Aadvik Foods and Products Pvt Ltd, the first company trading in camel milk and milk products on a pan-India scale. The Rajasthan-based company procures 3,5004,000 litres of milk a month from pastoralists in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Ramesh Bhatti, programme director and team leader of the Centre for Pastoralism Unit of Sahjeevan, a public charitable trust based in Gujarat, says a pastoralist with 25 camels can earn up to ₹3 lakh a year by selling milk. Bhatti works with the Rabari and Jat pastoral communities engaged in camel breeding in the Kachchh region. Pastoralists in the region sell more than 1,000 litres of camel milk every week, he estimates. Bhatti says the demand for camel milk is on the rise but the regulation can dent the budding market.
This story is from the February 01, 2017 edition of Down To Earth.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the February 01, 2017 edition of Down To Earth.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
TURN OVER A NEW LEAF
The young leaves of pilkhan free are a worthy alternative to leafy vegetables in the spring season
The pill that's roiling US drug regulation
The hard right is challenging FDA's authority to regulate drugs with its lawsuit to ban America's most used abortion pill
FAIR PRICE
Using a calculator, Uttar Pradesh scientifically fixes fee for transporting faecal sludge to treatment plants
THE FOREVER POLLUTANT
From production to usage to disposal, plastic is a threat to those who come in its contact SIDDHARTH GHANSHYAM SINGH
Seeds from the past
For a decade,200 villages in Odisha have conserved and grown 190 indigenous rice and millet varieties with proven climate resilience
TESTING TIMES
While the world is trying to identify uniform tests to measure soil biodiversity, it still needs investment and infrastructure to make them available to all
BREAKING NEW GROUND
Soil health is typically measured by its nutrient content, by presence of elements like nitrogen and phosphorus. No country in the world measures it in terms of soil biodiversity-a counting of underground faunal populations and microorganisms.
PRIME TRIGGER
Heat stress dominates debate on the causes of a mysterious chronic kidney disease that continues to baffle health experts and is on the rise globally
Coral catastrophe
Consistent ocean heating puts global corals at risk of mass bleaching in 2024
CHIPKO A DISTANT MEMORY
Whenever a dictionary of green terms is written, no matter in what language, it will contain at least one Hindi word-Chipko, which means to hug.