In winter, makeshift camel trading markets are established in Pakistan, including Sindh. At the end of October, a camel market was held at Badin’s Saman Sarkar festival. This traditional market is amongst the top camel markets held in Pakistan every year.
The market attracts camel traders come from different parts of Pakistan to the Badin festival for camel selling and purchasing.
According to attendees, the demand for Thari and Laari camel breed was high this year in the Saman Sarkar festival. Normally prices of adult male animals of both breed remains under 300,000 however, this year the price was upto 400,000 rupees. The reason was this year it was a good market because visiting Punjab traders also purchased these camels.
According to Shafi Murghur, president of Delta Development Organisation, a non-government organisation working in the Indus Delta on the environment, there are four camel breeds of Sindh namely Thari or Dhatti, Kharai, Laari or Sindhi, and Kohistani. “Laari breed is considered as most beautiful because of its height and weight. Also Laari female gives almost double milk production than other breeds of Sindh,” he told The Express Tribune.
Cameleers say that camels in Pakistan are used for draught purposes through carts mostly drawing agricultural products. Resale demand for a camel is high and its market is also soaring.
On the other hand, experts like Prof Dr Abdul Raziq Kakar, a United Arab Emirates-based Pakistani animal scientist, terms camel as the animal of the future. “Countries like Pakistan have the potential to nurture camel production. Camel can be a tool to combat the future challenges of drought, environmental changes, global warming, and threats of the new diseases, etc,” Prof Kakar told The Express Tribune.
He says considering the growing demand for camel meat and milk globally, it is high time for authorities to focus on Pakistan’s camel growth and marketing to generate revenues.
As per United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 2019 report Pakistan ranks eighth in the top ten camel producer countries in the world, with around 1.1 million heads and at least 20 different officially recognised camel breeds.
More than 40 per cent of Pakistan’s camel population is in Balochistan, 30 percent in Sindh, 22 percent in Punjab, and 7 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
(Zulfiqar Kunbhar is a Karachi-based environmental journalist. He tweets @ZulfiqarKunbhar)