The problems of camel herders finding buyers for their animals at the Pushkar fair have been highlighted by a story and video produced by the Agence France-Press. This is the link for the video and this one for the story which was picked up widely by other news agencies.

The town of Pushkar is as vibrant, busy and colourful as ever during its annual Mela. But this year it seems that there are more cameras than camels and that the turbaned camel breeders are outnumbered by stalking photographers. The official data about the number of livestock brought to the fair by Tuesday evening were published today in the newspaper and confirm the observation:

                    2011      2012      2013
Camels     8238      6953      4739
Horses     4403      3639      2779
Cattle       4256      4270      1092

Total     17604     15510     9237

The Pushkar Camel Fair is the annual highlight for many of Rajasthan’s camel herders – in the short span of a few days, they realise their entire income for the whole year by selling off their young camels. But in the last few years, the demand has been slack and they have been forced to take home many unsold animals. This year, the situation may be especially bad and few camels changed ownership on the first day of sales yesterday. We will report more details here in the coming days.

In a festive ceremony held at the LPPS campus in Butibagh on November 6th, our newest publication “The Camels of Kumbhalgarh. A biodiversity treasure” was officially released in the presence of Col. Dr. Umaid Singh and of Dr. N.V. Patil, director of the National Research Centre on Camel. Col. Umaid Singhji conveyed a message of support by H.H. Gaj Singhji of Jodhpur. The event was also attended by MLA Pushpendra Singh, as well as Shri Kamal Kishore, coordinator of the Rainfed Livestock Network, by Dr. Christiane Herweg of LPP, in addition to about 400 camel herders and local women. Many innovative caamel products were on display and local artisans demonstrated their skills in fashioning various products from camel raw materials.