In Summary
- Government in talks with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to set up processing plants in Eastern parts of the country.
- Gates foundation to set up plants in Garissa and Isiolo in a sector worth $10 billion a year globally.
Marketed in raw form
According to the study by SNV, 12 per cent of camel milk was marketed mostly in raw form, 10 per cent to rural consumers and 2 per cent to urban consumers.
Out of the rest, constituting 88 per cent, 38 per cent was used by producing households while the other 50 per cent or 170 million litres was ‘wasted’ or could not be accounted for.
“This roughly means an opportunity for increasing the incomes of camel keeping communities by Sh4 billion every year is lost,” said the SNV report.
Vital Camel Milk Ltd sells its produce locally while some is exported to South Africa, America and Chile.
The challenge now lies in maintaining high quality standards and increasing the volumes of production to meet the demand and consistency in the market.
A draft bill on dairy sector, which will bring the camel milk under regulation similar to cattle milk, is in the pipeline.
Value-chain approach to deal with issues of low productivity, market access, poor organisation of the producers and traders and poor development of supporting infrastructure is required for the sector to contribute more to the national economy.
According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the international market for camel milk is estimated at Sh800 billion ($10 billion) per year with consumers concentrated mostly in the Middle East, Europe and America.
The international market is, however, highly sensitive to quality and international food safety in general and those governing organic food market, hence the local producers have to improve on their standards to penetrate the highly lucrative outlets.
Several companies, mostly in Middle East, are already making a variety of products that include soaps and yorghut from camel milk.