Camel Farming Sustainability: The Challenges of the Camel Farming System in the XXIth Century

Abstract

In some countries, camel farming is changing from traditional extensive forms to modern semi-intensive or even intensive forms. This could lead to decrease the established perception of the camel farming as an environmentally sustainable production system. The challenges for all camel stakeholders to maintain this image and to promote a "sustainable development" involve the control of the camel demography which must be balanced with the environmental carrying capacity, the preservation of the camel diversity, the development of alternative feeding systems for preserving the water resources in desert areas, the promotion of high-value products to the growing market, the control of the health constraints for a highly mobile camel population, and the respect of the social role of camel in the new living standard.

No Serologic Evidence of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Infection Among Camel Farmers Exposed to Highly Seropositive Camel Herds: A Household Linked Study, Kenya, 2013

“…In the Middle East, camel farming is mostly semi-intensive and intensive system where camels are housed and stall fed to maximize productivity for meat and milk as opposed to most of Africa where camel farming is mainly extensive and camels roam over extensive areas in search of pasture and water. 30 The intensive farming characterized by livestock sheds could present greater opportunity for virus survival and transmission from camels to humans. This study characterizes the local practices of this pastoralist community in reference to camels and highlights the extensive direct contact of the people with camels in natural settings that could facilitate transmission of virus from camels to humans.…”

Composition and Properties of Camel Milk

“…During the last 50 years, a fundamental shift has occurred in the way of housing and managing the camels. Today, in some countries, the extensive or nomadic production system for camels has become semi-intensive or intensive modern well-organized farms and industries [8]. Camels were known as "ships of the desert" commonly used as a mean of transport for thousands of years, carrying up to 600 lbs.…”

Dromedary Camels and the Transmission of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV)

“…There was a distinction between farmers living in the desert together with moving animals as a primary source of livelihood and those living in cities, having camels in peri‐urban or sometimes in desert locations but for mainly social satisfaction rather than for economic reasons. Integration to the market for milk and meat drives owners to an increasingly peri‐urban setting with improved supplemental diet and better health management (Faye, ). Some highly intensive farms are also emerging all over the Arabian Peninsula both for milk production (including milk processing with forms of pasteurized milk) and meat production (feed‐lot farms of young male camels ( hachi ) often imported from the Horn of Africa).…”

“…One of the main aspects regarding the camel economy worldwide is the importance of camel regional markets, mainly for providing animals to the meat market. In this context, important flows of live camels are reported from the Horn of Africa (exporting countries are Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti) to the North of the continent (Egypt, Libya) and to the countries of the Arabia Peninsula (Faye, ). These movements could be important in understanding the epidemiology and viral evolution of MERS‐CoV.…”