Advocacy for camel Research and development in Kenya

Abstract

Kenya's camel population is about three million (MSPND, 2009), majority are kept by pastoralists in the northern Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASALs) i.e. in North Eastern (57%), Rift Valley (33%), and Eastern (8%) while the rest (2%) are sparsely spread countrywide. All camels are the one humped dromedary (Came/us dromedariu.s) . Camels are important in ASALs for providing milk, meat, hides, transport and draught that improves the livelihoods of pastoralists. Its milk is of superior quality and posses some medicinal properties (Yagil and Van Creveld, 2000; Agrawal et ai,