Turning camels into cows: megafarms are being set up to produce camel milk on industrial scales

By Ariell Ahearn, Departmental Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Oxford
Dawn Chatty,, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration, University of Oxford

The camel may be the next cow.

An animal that once grazed and browsed over huge distances is increasingly being enclosed in vast Middle Eastern dairy farms, where thousands of camels are milked by machine. This is the model of sedentary farming that produced modern cows, sheep and pigs. Camels have so far resisted it – yet in certain ways, they are ideal livestock for the next climate reality.

Camels evolved to cope with very hot days and freezing cold desert nights. They can go for days with little water or vegetation, and produce less methane than cows, sheep and other…

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