Chen Gangliang, China

05/08/2024

It is hard to think of Chinese history without thinking of the Silk Road and its long camel caravans carrying fine fabrics and spices across the globe. And yet, by the early 2000s, China’s native Bactrian camels had lost much of their economic appeal and population numbers, including in its autonomous region Xinjiang, once a main artery of the famous trade route. 

Perhaps it is only fitting, then, that a textile entrepreneur would restore them to prominence and build a new kind of camel industry in this northwestern region, where economic development is relatively low compared to other regions and the climate condition is unfavorable.

“The number of camels in China drastically declined because they no longer served as a means of transportation,” explains Chen Gangliang, a bio-geneticist, former fabric trader, and the founder of Xinjiang Wangyuan Camel Milk Ltd.

“Most of the camels in China are situated in the poor areas of the ethnic minorities, mainly Kazakhs and Mongols,” he says. “I figured, if I could explore their economic value, it would be such a good way to both protect these camel resources and increase the income of camel herders.”

The idea was both simple and smart: buy milk from the remaining herders in Xinjiang’s Fuhai County and encourage others to enter the trade by offering them interest-free loans to buy their first camels. As part of the agreement, Chen would buy and collect all the milk they wanted to sell.

The biggest challenge he faced was that camel milk would spoil easily and therefore was difficult to transport and sell across China, let alone abroad. It ultimately took him and his researchers 103 experiments and more than USD 1.4 million to develop a bio-filter technique to keep camel milk fresh for at least 6 months, without preservatives or additives. And with that, seemingly overnight, camel milk became a lucrative industry in Fuhai. Today, Chen's business produces camel milk worth some USD 150 million a year.

Since opening in 2007, his company has provided nearly 1 600 loans and now purchases up to 30 tons of milk a day in winter and 65 tons in summer, at a fair price.  Across Fuhai, hundreds of herders and cooperatives now make a stable living off the sector and other counties and companies have copied the model. Fuhai’s camel population has increased from around 3 000 in the year 2006 to about 38 000 now. By eliminating the risk and base capital that often prevents poor camel herders from building their livelihood, Chen’s initiative has developed both individual entrepreneurship and a new camel economy in Xinjiang.