The value of pastoralism as a food production strategy without any inputs and its ecological benefits are now well established and interest has increased especially among groups that promote resilience. However, the progress in international fora in recognizing and acting upon this situation is agonizingly slow, and governments pay only lip service towards pastoralism. Even the organic movement does not recognize the advantages of pastoralism and some of its protagonists continue to associate pastoralism with drought, desertification and overgrazing. The overall goal of this project that is supported by Misereor is to project and establish pastoralism as a sustainable model for ecological and ethical livestock production in the future.

One of the components of this project is to ‘count pastoralists’ in different countries (Argentina, Germany, India, Kenya, and Uganda) and to develop a better methodology for obtaining data on evaluating their economic and ecological importance.

LPP’s partner organization LPPS set up its first dairy project near Jaisalmer in 2008 selling camel milk locally mostly for Diabetes patients. In the context of the Ark Project (2011) LPP developed ideas for marketing and value addition of local livestock products also such as camel milk products. Over the years, Camel Charisma, a social enterprise that aims to promote and market environment friendly products from the camel, has developed variety of products from camel milk such as camel milk soap and camel milk ice cream.

A microdairy project in form of the Kumbhalgarh Camel Dairy, was set up in 2015. With great support of LPP members and friends the building of the camel dairy was built at the LPPS Camel Conservation Centre near Ranakpur, Rajasthan. The machines for pasteurization and cooling where bought and installed. The microdairy is using milk from areas where the camels graze on plants traditionally recognized as having medicinal properties.
A special characteristic of camel milk is its health-effect for Diabetes patients and autistic children. The milk is collected daily from registered and monitored herds; as soon as it arrives in the dairy it is pasteurized then frozen for transportation to customers in Delhi and metros. The next objectives of the Camel Milk Project will be to optimize marketing strategies for camel milk products, to inform intensively about milk and food hygiene by trainings and workshops for local producers and to realize the production of new camel milk products such as camel cheese. 

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LPPS: http://www.lpps.org/
Camel Charisma: https://camelcharisma.com