Good news for nomads with camels.

Good news for nomads with camels, thanks to a woman.
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Friday, 09/01/06
A new use for camel's milk: Sell it abroad.
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NOUAKCHOTT, MAURITANIA - Twenty years ago, when times were tough, Mohamed Ould Tati had to sell one of his cherished camels to make ends meet. Today, he can just sell its milk.
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Slightly saltier than cow's milk and three times as rich in Vitamin C, camel's milk has been a favorite drink for centuries in Mauritania, served to guests under the billowing folds of a traditional khaima tent or donated to the poor.
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A new use for camel's milk: Sell it abroad.
"But we never thought of selling it. It was a very shameful thing to do," Mr. Tati explains, raising his bushy eyebrows in remembered horror.
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But now, nomads across the desert nation supply fresh milk to the Tiviski dairy in the capital, Nouakchott, where it is pasteurized, packaged, and sold. "Slowly the mentality has changed," Tati grins. "Before, milk was for drinking; now it's liquid gold."
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The UN Food and Agricultural Organization said recently that the world market for camel-milk products could be as much as $10 billion, giving nomadic herders a key source of income while helping to provide more food to people in the world's most arid areas.
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Tiviski was the brainchild of British engineer, Nancy Abeiderrahmane. On a visit to Mauritania as a student, she was struck by the absurdity of everyone drinking imported milk in a country where livestock outnumber people. It rankled so much, she decided to do something about it, setting up the first dairy in Africa - and only the second in the world - to pasteurize camel's milk.
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It's a win-win enterprise in one of the world's poorest countries where, despite becoming Africa's newest oil producer this year, almost two-thirds of the population lives on less than $2 a day.
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Abeiderrahmane's innovative attempts to branch into cheese, for example, have been bogged down in red tape.

Given that camel milk doesn't curdle naturally, and that the cool, damp conditions needed for cheesemaking seem to exist only in mirages here on the edge of the Sahara Desert, it is remarkable that she managed to create a fromage de chamelle.

With the appearance of a rather square Camembert but the taste of a tangy goat's cheese, it has had stores like Harrods of England licking their lips.

But EU regulations means it cannot be exported. "It's quite ironic, really," Abeiderrahmane chuckles. "Because, despite the rules, most of the cheese makes it to Europe now - it just happens through people's suitcases."
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0901/p01s03-woaf.html