The Rajasthan Co-operative Dairy Federation (RCDF) will replicate the Kutch district model implemented by Sahjeevan, a voluntary organization that mobilized camel breeders for milk.
RCDF will market the milk under the name ‘Saras’, a brand under which it also sells buffalo and cow milk.
The federation had started the camel milk project before Gujarat but dropped it after finding it unfeasible. The project was revived with growing awareness on the health benefits from camel milk.
Rajasthan is home to 84% of India’s camel population and has declared it the state animal. Gujarat has 11% of the country’s camel population.
Speaking to TOI, Kavita Mehta, acting executive director of Sahjeevan said, “We have been working for the last four years to convince RCDF, animal husbandry department and other stakeholders about the potential of the camel milk market and its economic benefit to camel breeders as the state has the largest camel population. We supported them in starting camel milk procurement and marketing under a co-operative structure like Gujarat. RCDF has finally agreed to market camel milk under the brand name of ‘Saras’.”
Sahjeevan helped district milk federations working under RCDF to mobilize pastoral communities of Bikaner, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer and created feasible pockets like Kutch. A private dairy Bahula Naturals, which already markets camel milk products, will process the milk using its infrastructure for RCDF to market. The federation will begin with Bikaner and Jaipur markets.
“Initially, they will start with procuring 50 litres a day and focus on Jaipur and Bikaner markets. After success here, RCDF will expand to other markets and will also create its own infrastructure to process camel milk,” Mehta added.
In Kutch, camel milk procurement started in 2017 with 500 litres per day and currently, Sarhad dairy procures 5,000 litres of milk per day.
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