Why the Camel Remains the True Cow of Northern Kenya

Water points become contested. Grazing routes become battlegrounds. Insecurity breeds in the cracks of climate stress.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and others have linked climate shocks to rising internal displacement across the Horn, and northern Kenya shows the strain in microcosm.

Camel: The New Cows

And yet, amid the ruin, a pragmatic adaptation has been quietly taking root. Where cattle can no longer survive, camels have stepped in, not as a romantic choice, but as a hard, necessary pivot.

Why camels?

The reasons are almost painfully straightforward. Camels are built for scarcity. They can endure thirst longer than cattle, browse on thorny shrubs, walk long distances in search of feed, and remain productive when cows falter.

FAO and multiple research institutions have documented camels’ resilience; their milk is nutrient-dense, often higher in vitamin C and iron than cow’s milk, and contains proteins and enzymes (lactoferrin, lysozyme, immunoglobulins) that researchers say offer antimicrobial and immune-modulatory benefits.

Recent reviews also note insulin-like proteins in camel milk, which have sparked interest for potential therapeutic benefits in glucose regulation, though scientists caution that more clinical trials are needed before any medical claims are definitive.

The World Resources Institute flagged this trend early: pastoralists in parts of Kenya have been deliberately shifting from cattle to camels as a form of “transformative adaptation”, changing not just practices but livelihood systems to survive a new climate reality.

Academic studies on the Borana in Isiolo show the same: camel rearing is replacing cattle in areas where droughts have become frequent and harsh.

At the human level, the difference camels make is visceral. In places I visited, a single lactating camel can sustain a family when cows have failed. Camel milk markets, once niche and largely local to Somali and Rendille communities, are beginning to stretch into towns and cities.

Nairobi’s cafés and specialty stores now offer camel-milk drinks; urban demand, and even export interest from Gulf markets, is nudging a market into existence.

FAO notes the potential: camels present a “huge economic and nutrition opportunity” for parts of Africa, especially where climate change makes traditional livestock increasingly unreliable.

But this shift is not without cost. Camels bring new husbandry needs and new disease risks. Veterinary services in arid counties are sparse, and sudden increases in camel populations can outpace the ability of local clinics to respond.

“Camels only succeed when you combine distribution with training, veterinary care and market access,” FAO livestock specialist Hussein Ada says.

There are also social costs: cattle are embedded in identity, marriage systems and status.

For many elders, the transition is painful. Yet practicality often wins where survival is at stake: dowries are negotiated differently, rituals adapt, and new songs are sung for the camel as a provider rather than the cattle as the only symbol of wealth.

Researchers caution that the transition must be supported, with veterinary care, cold-chain investment for milk, credit lines for herders, and policy that recognizes pastoral mobility rather than seeking to settle it in ways that may worsen vulnerability.

Samburu County launched camel distribution and support programmes years ago; recent reporting suggests thousands of Somali camels have been distributed to vulnerable households across arid counties to shore up dairy production and household resilience.

“If we had only cows, we would have nothing left. The camels are the only animals still giving us milk,” said Lerushan Lepalak a pastoralist Samburu County.

Local governments and NGOs have piloted chilling centres and cooperative marketing schemes to help women milkers aggregate and move product to market. These interventions show what works when a package of support, animals, training, veterinary services, and market access, is combined.

“We are giving out Somali camels to the most vulnerable households so they can produce milk and rebuild their livelihoods,” Samburu Governor Jonathan Lati Lelelit said during he distribution.

Fatuma Guyo, member of the Anolei Women’s Camel Milk Cooperative in Isiolo said, “Camel milk has become our income. The chilling centre helps us sell together and get better prices,” She added.

Economic math helps explain the turn. In drought conditions, the market price and productive value of camels often eclipse that of cattle. A milking camel can produce substantial daily yields in lean times; camel milk fetches premium prices in urban markets that value its perceived health qualities.

For households facing the choice between losing everything and pivoting to camels, the choice is pragmatic. The risk, of course, is that without fair market structures, middlemen and volatility can hollow out benefits for producers.

That is why policy matters: support for cold chains, quality control, and producer cooperatives is crucial if the camel economy is to lift communities rather than enrich a few intermediaries.

Neither policy nor markets are yet where they need to be. KALRO and other research institutions have stressed the need for more targeted extension services for camels, more investment in disease surveillance, and better financing options for pastoralists who cannot suddenly invest in high-value animals without risk.

The World Resources Institute warns of an unequal transition: those with capital or access will be able to buy camels and benefit, while the poorest risk being left behind without credit, training or veterinary support.

Still, I want to end where I began, with people I hold close. I remember the afternoon a herder in Garissa handed me a cup of raw camel milk. It was cool, creamy, and tasted of survival: clean, full, an honest food. Around us, men laughed; we drank and enjoyed every sip. Another herder called across the bushes to ask whether I liked it. I said yes, and he clapped his hands laughing hysterically as if I had praised a child’s performance.

In the manyatta, the camel is more than an animal now. It is a measure of resilience. It is calories when the rains do not come, cash when markets open, and a fragile new dignity for families who have seen everything burned away by climate shocks.

This is not a redemption arc

Camels will not solve structural poverty by themselves. They do not replace strong health systems, functioning markets, or the international action needed to slow climate change. But in the here and now, they are a pragmatic answer to a brutal question: how do people keep their children alive when everything else fails?

If Kenya is to make this adaptation sustainable, it must follow with policy and finance that think pastoralists as agents, not problems. That means veterinary networks that reach the bush, cold chains that keep milk safe, credit that understands mobility and livestock timelines, and market structures that pay producers fairly. It also means protecting grazing corridors and negotiating land use in ways that reduce conflict.

Back in Eldas, a boy chased a camel calf across the pocket of crowded bushes. He laughed out loud and for that moment, the future, small, fragile and uncertain, felt possible. For communities that have suffered too much, possibility is itself a kind of hope.

Camels are not the only answer, but they are the shape of adaptation that many here have chosen. They deserve more than ad hoc programs and panicked distributions; they deserve a proper, planned pathway to transform a tragic vulnerability into a durable livelihood.

Climate change did not invent pastoral adaptation; it has only accelerated a choice millions have been forced to make. If the international community, national policymakers and local leaders want to turn this into a lasting resilience story, they will have to act like partners, not saviours.

Support the herders who chose to change. Build the markets they need. Strengthen the science that protects their animals. And above all, listen. Because when the rains stop and the sun burns long, it is not policy papers that keep children fed. It is a woman with a cup of milk, a herder with a camel, and a community that refuses to be defeated.