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Pastoralists of Himachal Pradesh an unusual casualty of global warming
- Climate change has led the Gaddi tribe to abandon its traditional livelihood of rearing sheep and goats
- Studies show that the temperature humidity index (THI), a measure of heat stress faced by animals is projected to rise in many parts of the state
KANGRA: You will not find anyone here, they left last month,” said Ramesh Chand about other shepherds in his mountain village. At 49, Chand is among a handful of men left in Kareri, near the town of Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh. The rest have set off on a months-long journey with their flocks of sheep and goats.
“They stay in makeshift tents on the mountain and once the snow starts melting, they will move further up,” said Chand, pointing to the snow-covered peaks of the mighty Dhauladhar ranges standing tall along the eastern edge of the village.
Every summer, the Gaddis, a semi-nomadic community that rears sheep and goats, travel with their herds between the upper reaches of Chamba and Lahaul in search of grazing pastures and come down in the winters when it starts to snow uphill.
“One has to see the difficult terrain that Gaddis plod, to believe the degree of risks involved. Sometimes there is sudden, unprecedented rainfall or snowfall and they get trapped. Such incidents get reported often,” says senior scientist Brij Lal, formerly with the CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur.
The tribe, famous for its carpet wool, is on the front line of climate change and is struggling to preserve its traditional livelihood. As of 2011, there were only 178,000 Gaddi pastoralists in the state.
Changes in the tree line, snow line and pastoral grounds have impacted the traditional route of seasonal migration. With the temperature rising by 1.6°C in the north-western Himalayan region over the last century, indigenous tribes have moved higher up, an act that has only heightened the risks.
Global warming in Himachal Pradesh leads to erratic rainfall, shifts in snowline and extreme weather events, according to the state’s action plan on climate change. Some regions could see an increase in the intensity of rainfall, coupled with storms.
“People have stopped rearing sheep. The grasslands have shrunk,” said Chand. “Neither are our children willing to take this up anymore. So, we have begun to hire workers to take the livestock for grazing,” he said.
The average temperature in the state has been rising across seasons and, under the most probable scenario, is likely to increase by 3°C by 2100. Rising temperatures may improve the quality of grass and prolong the grazing season, but these likely benefits are already being offset by other challenges. Pests and diseases among livestock have grown, affecting the quality of wool the shepherds produce.
Disease causing organisms living in an environment of low mean temperature may witness increased development even if there is a small increase in temperature, reducing animal productivity and possibly leading to an increase animal mortality. Some may adapt to changes in temperature by changing geographical distribution.
“The ecology is shifting upwards. Foot and mouth disease has become quite common among the animals. It appears in Una, a low-lying city bordering Punjab , where the temperature is 28-29°C in March. However, as the Gaddis reach higher altitudes, where temperatures are 28-30°C during that period, the host of the disease shifts accordingly,” said Ranbir Singh Rana, principal scientist at Himachal Pradesh Agricultural University (HPAU), Palampur.
Studies show that the temperature humidity index (THI), a measure of heat stress faced by animals is projected to rise in many parts of the state.
“Livestock has become more prone to lice and ticks,” said Rana. The increase in temperature has also exacerbated the weed problem in the hills, as some warm season weeds have spread to higher altitudes. “The pastures are no longer clean. There is unwanted grass, which compels the Gaddis to go higher up,” he said.
The agriculture and livestock keeping are amongst the most climate-sensitive economic sectors. The recent report by Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) also highlighted how limited resources and fragility of environment are rendering the hill tribes more vulnerable to climate variations and the risk of them falling into poverty is much higher than in the lowlands.
A recent report by United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also highlighted that global pasture area has begun to decline in last 20 years.
The challenge has led the state government to draw up a ₹250 crore programme for skill development for communities, focusing on biodiversity conservation and climate change.
“The idea is to train people on how to adapt and manage these pastures for sustaining their livelihood and develop their skills to protect the landscape,” said Suresh C. Attri, principal scientific officer in the department of environment, science and technology, Himachal Pradesh.
With one of the oldest indigenous communities of the state beginning to abandon its traditional livelihood, it may not be surprising if wool making disappears from this part of the hills. “Those who still continue are those who have already crossed the prime of their life. The younger ones are hard to find,” said Rana.
This story was published as part of IHCAP-CMS Media Fellowship programme 2019.
Camel Milk Alchemy: Nature’s Antidote for Urban Lifestyles
Its World Camel Day on 22nd June and therefore time for an ode to this animal that is the product of ancient nomadic cultures, but rapidly accumulating admirers and supporters in the North.
I won’t bore you with the known and scientifically proven facts about camel milk and its therapeutic value for a range of “modern”, lifestyle diseases. After all, they are all over the place, hyped by a global, very active network of camel lovers, camel dairy entrepreneurs (of which I am one), and people who have experienced dramatic health improvements after they started consuming camel milk. Compatible with lactose intolerance, helpful for diabetes patients by reducing need for insulin injections, often beneficial for certain types of autism, are some of the well-established facts. (Contact me if you need references)
For me the wonder of the camel is associated with its nomadic origin in the vast deserts of the Arabian peninsula: Its ability to convert extremely spiky, thorny and fibrous trees or scant widely dispersed ground vegetation, sometimes with an extremely high salt content, into a delicious elixir that is ideally positioned to address the needs of the times. Here are the three points that need to get more attention in future research and work on camels:
1. An opportunity for creating a more animal friendly and more ecologically sustainable milk production system.
The emerging camel dairy sector should carefully avoid the pitfalls of conventional dairying, such as hyper-bred cows needing expensive feed, throw away male calves, exploitation of farmers, and dismantling of milk into its constituent parts. Camel dairying must remain a system based on nature in which camels harvest leafs and pods of wild plants and convert this biodiverse biomass into a powerful, entirely naturally health elixir. In start-up speak, camel dairying is a system to disrupt conventional practices and approaches to dairying.
2. Climate change proofing.
With average temperatures inching up annually in the already hot parts of the world, no other animal is as well positioned to support dryland food production (“adaptation”). Camel milk production requires less fossil fuels than cow milk production. What other food producing strategy do you know that makes do without the plough, fossil fuels, fertilizers, harvesting machinery? And it is worth mentioning (although this part of the anti-livestock story is being debunked now) that they emit less methane than cows, maybe also because of their diet high in tannins (“mitigation”).
3. Camel milk chills
Camel milk is good for your health, but from personal experience I feel it is not just about physical health but about something more: about peace of mind! Drinking fresh camel milk is almost intoxicating: It helps you relax and focus. It’s the perfect antidote for a hectic, constantly on-line, multi-tasking lifestyle. Its grounds you.
The scientific explanation for this might be its high content of GABA (Gamma-Amino-Butyric Acid), a substance that blocks neuro-transmitters and reduces the number of neurons firing in the brain, thereby promoting relaxation, sleep and easing anxiety.
Apart from that I feel it helps you cope better with heat – which would only be logical. And a new research hypothesis holds that it can help your body dealing with air pollution. More about that hopefully soon.
Try it out – camel milk puts you into a Sufi mood!
How Irish dairy farmers established a sheep milk business
Exploiting milk production from grass is giving Irish dairy farmers Barry and Lorraine Cahalan a cost of production advantage over the housed sheep systems more common in the UK.
The couple, who milk 200 Frieslands in Terryglass, County Tipperary, are paid €1.40/litre (£1.25/litre) for milk surplus to their requirements for their own cheese-making business.
But cost of production is kept at 80 cents/litre (71p/litre) by producing as much milk as they can from pasture.
Establishment
The Cahalans established the flock in 2012. Mr Cahalan’s parents had been running a mixed sheep, beef and arable enterprise, but they wanted to simplify the system.
“We liked sheep but the margins were quite tight. We also looked at the cost of setting up a dairy cow unit, but it was expensive to get that established because we didn’t have any suitable infrastructure,” says Mr Cahalan.
They also looked producing goats milk, but the market was over-supplied.
It was cheese-maker Marion Roeleveld, whom Mrs Cahalan had spent some time with during a work experience placement, who gave them the idea for establishing a sheep milk business.
“She provided us with some contact details and after doing some research we could see a lot of potential in producing sheep milk,” Mrs Cahalan recalls.
They visited dairy sheep set-ups in the North of England and in Holland and realised there was a gap in market for grass-based systems.
“A lot of the systems are indoor so the yields are higher, but so are the costs. One of our advantages is that we can grow a lot of grass so it made sense for us to capitalise on that,” she adds.
Securing a supply contract was one of the more challenging aspects of sheep milk production. In Ireland, there is no co-operative for sheep milk so there is no lorry that comes along to pick it up.
“You have to find someone to process the milk and you have to deliver it to them,” Mr Cahalan explains.
With this in mind, they felt that making cheese from the milk seemed the best way forward.
They now sell six tonnes of Cáis Na Tíre cheese a year and sell the surplus milk – 500 litres a week – to another cheese-maker.
Farm facts
- Milking 200 ewes twice daily
- Selling cheese to two large wholesalers, Sheridans and Horgans, as well as independent retailers and delicatessens
- Won silver at the British Cheese Awards and two bronzes at the Irish Cheese Awards
Investment in infrastructure
Although there were existing buildings on the farm, there was nothing suitable for converting to make way for the new enterprise, so the Cahalans invested about €80,000 in a nine-bay shed with provision for housing, a 20/20 rapid-exit parlour with 10 units on either side and cheese storage facilities.
In 2012, they bought 60 Friesland ewe lambs at five days old from another farmer who was milking sheep.
“We wanted to find our feet with a small number first until we had established our market and we chose the Friesland because it is specifically bred for producing milk and it has a long lactation,” says Mr Cahalan.
The first crop of lambs was reared through to lambing in the spring of 2013, when the first milk was produced. The flock has been steadily increased to 200.
Milking
Ewes are milked twice a day and dry off naturally, without dry cow tubes or sealant, once milking is reduced to once a day.
“We are learning as we go along but in early autumn, when the days are shorter, we cut the milking down to once a day for a few weeks and feed them hay. It takes them two or three weeks to dry off.”
It takes only one-and-a-half minutes for a ewe to milk out, so the milking process is quick – between one-and-a-half and two-and-a-half hours, depending on whether there are one or two people milking.
The flock is in milk from the middle of February to the beginning of October. Ewes produce an annual average yield of 300 litres at 5.5% butterfat and 5.1% protein from pasture and 1kg of concentrates a day.
The sheep are housed for three months in the winter, bedded on straw and fed a silage-only diet. Ewes are turned out to grass as soon as they have lambed.
Grassland management
Sheep are run on a paddock-grazing system for most of the year.
The milking platform is 55 acres (22ha) and each field is split into 1.5-acre (0.60ha) paddocks.
“The flock gets about three to five grazings per paddock,” Mr Cahalan explains. “We take two cuts of silage off three large silage fields and any paddocks that get too strong throughout the year are cut and baled also.
“All silage is made into round bales. We also try to make a few acres of hay every year, which we use when drying off our ewes at the end of their lactation.”
Breeding
The Friesland breed is prolific: the Cahalans’ flock scans at an average of 200% and mostly achieves 1.9 lambs born.
The breeding pool in Ireland is relatively small, so bringing new rams and ewes into the flock can be very expensive.
To provide replacements, they select 60 of their best milkers to cross with a high-performing Friesland ram.
The remainder are crossed with a Charollais or Beltex, to increase the meat value of the lambs.
“We keep the best females and everything else is sold to a rearer at four or five days old where they are reared on automatic feeders,” says Mrs Cahalan.
Disease control
With some parasite control products not registered for use in milking ewes, they need to be shorn several times a year.
Mastitis is rare, but any cases that do occur do so soon after lambing. “We treat them immediately, but once a ewe gets mastitis it is very rare that she will make it so she will most likely be culled,” Mr Cahalan explains.
Cheese-making process
The milk is delivered to Marion Roeleveld in County Galway twice a week and made into a hard cheese, which the Cahalans have branded as Cáis Na Tíre. Barry likens it to the taste and texture of Manchego. “It has a crumbly texture and the more mature it gets, the drier it becomes.”
The cheese wheels are returned to the Cahalans’ farm after a month. They are then matured in a dedicated store where the temperature and humidity levels are carefully controlled. Each wheel must be turned and wiped weekly.
While the cheese matures, it is not generating an income – so milk sales are important for cashflow.
“One of the downsides to making a hard cheese is that you have the cost of making it but don’t see a return for at least a year: we don’t get paid until we sell that cheese,” says Barry.
The focus of the business in the five years since it was established has been to grow sheep numbers, but now the 200-ewe target has been reached Mr Cahalan says the time has come to focus on cheese-making themselves.
Originally, an arrangement that had started with Marion Roeleveld making their cheese as a favour developed into a five-year partnership. “Making our cheese has been creating extra work for Marion, so it is now time we learned to make it ourselves,” says Mrs Cahalan.
“We will need to make sure the taste and everything else are the same but we will be making it to the same recipe, which is based on the Tomme recipe from France.”
This will require further investment, in cheese-making facilities, and the Cahalans are hopeful of securing a grant for these.
