UNDER an initiative taken earlier this month, the Livestock and Dairy Development Department of Punjab has started collecting organic camel milk from Cholistan and selling it in Lahore and adjoining areas.

Launched with 700 litres of daily supply, the initiative aims to take the sales to 3,000 litres per day within months when the breeding season of camels ends. Punjab is also looking to exploit the export potential of camel milk in the long run.

With 10 times higher iron content and three times more vitamin C than in cow milk, camel milk is surfacing as a new superfood promising health benefits.

Since the European Union allowed its import in 2013, camel milk has been gaining global popularity and its production is booming in Middle Eastern countries.

India is also capitalising on the opportunity, as its exports of camel milk and its dried powder have reached Rs10 billion.

Nasim Sadiq, the department`s secretary, says Punjab has 90,000 camels and has the potential for producing 12,000 litres of milk per day.

Starting from the Cholistan desert, the department aims to take the project to 11 districts, including Bahawalnagar, Muzaffargarh, Jhang, Mianwali, Bhakkar, Chakwal, Khushab and Vehari.

Except for the procurement of 5,000 food-grade milk bottles, the initiative has so far cost the exchequer no expenses.

`The department already has buildings in Cholistan [under other projects], two of which have been chosen as milk collection centres,` Mr Sadiq says.

These centres have solar power generation for chillers. Moreover, the department has also hired a tanker fitted with food-grade container to transport milk to a processing plant at the Pattoki campus of the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, he says.

Milk is then supplied to six points in Lahore and adjoining areas for sale. The naturally low-fat commodity has been kept `traceable`, as it is processed and sold batch-wise and each milk bottle bears the name of farmers, he adds.

Mr Sadiq says milk is purchased at Rs37 per litre from camel owners and sold at Rs120 per litre with the promise that when the project starts earn-ing profit, 75 per cent of it will go to the camel farmers and the remainder to the departmental staff involved in the initiative as an incentive or extra duty allowance.

The project is expected to reach break-even by the end of this month by touching sales of 1,500 litres per day.

He says that milk produced by Cholistan camels is far better in quality than that of available in other town of Punjab. `Cholistan camels feed on herbs with no trace of fertilisers and pesticides. Being in a water-scarce desert area, these animals quench their thirst from the juices of herbs which means that their produce is pure organic,` he says. `In contrast, camels in towns usually feed on stale loaves or waste coming from vegetable markets which may have pesticides.

The department has no plans for exports so far, but wishes that the private sector capitalises on the opportunity to the benefit of poor camel-owners.

Keeping in view the importance of camels as a source of milk, meat and wool as well as transportation, the department earlier executed a project named `Prophylactic measures and sero-surveillance of camel and camel milk processing in Punjab`.

The objective of that project was to improve the production and productivity of camels by improving diagnostics, surveillance and the provision of free veterinary care services. Free de-worming and anti-ectoparasitic campaigns were the hallmarks of the project.

Dr Shoaib Ashraf of the Rahim Yar Khan diagnostic laboratory says that at least 9,000 camels in the Cholistan area were de-wormed during the previous financial year. As follow-ups, campaigns of de-worming against endoparasites and ectoparasites will be carried out every three months.

In order to monitor their health status as well as disease prevalence, the lab collected faecal samples of 20,925 camels, and blood and serum samples of the 23,271 animals.

He says camels` nutritious supplement was also distributed free of cost in Rahim Yar Khan district for improving general health of the animal.

Overall, Pakistan is among the world`s biggest producers of milk. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2016-17, annual milk production in the country was estimated at more than 56 million tonnes. •