Observing the United Nations International Year of Camelids 2024, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) organized a discussion and networking session on ‘Camelids: From Desert Treasures to Value-added Marvels’ on August 1, 2024, in the UN House, New Delhi. The session is part of the fifth edition of the ‘Agrifood Café’, a monthly conversation series, collaboratively organized by the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Bank and the German Cooperation.

The panelists during the session included Prof KML Pathak, Former Deputy Director General (AS), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Aakriti Srivastava, Founder, Bahula Naturals. Takayuki Hagiwara, FAO Representative in India (FAO-R), moderated the session. The event was attended by nearly 30 individuals representing several UN agencies, international development organizations, and research institutes.

“FAO recognizes the significant roles of camelids in India. Working in the livestock sector is an important mandate for FAO in India, and we aim to include the camelid sector as an integral part of it”, highlighted FAO-R.

Prof KML Pathak highlighted the importance of camelids to the Raikas, the nomadic camel herdercommunity of Rajasthan. “Camelids play a key role in our culture, economy, food security and livelihoods”, shared Prof Pathak. Additionally, he underlined the need to raise awareness among a larger audience and recognise the many advantages camelids offer in tackling the problems caused by climate change.

Aakriti shared an overview of the initiatives undertaken by Bahula Naturals, a community-driven social enterprise focussing on resilient regions and smart foods, aiming to become India’s first net-zero agri-dairy ecosystem. She shared the current ecosystem challenges for pastoral communities and camelids in India such as shortage of water bodies along pastoral routes, rapid decline of the commons, primitive production techniques, poor marketing support to produce (milk, meat and wool), and lack of identity and enabling policy environment promoting and supporting pastoralism and pastoralism and pastoralists.

Following an interaction with the audience, FAO-R emphasized the need to create stronger policy dialogue for the camelid sector in India. FAO in India will work on a scalable value chain to enable camelid producers and establish pathways to attract increased investments, improve the performance of the non-bovine dairy value chain, and ensure broader sustainability benefits for the agrifood systems.

Camelids play a significant role in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals related to the fight against hunger, eradication of extreme poverty, the empowerment of women and the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems therefore combating desertification, halting and reversing land degradation and stemming the loss of biological diversity. From providing milk, meat, and fibre for communities to transport products and people, and organic fertilizer, camelids thrive where other livestock species cannot survive. 

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