The Nomad Dairy

40% of camel herders lose due to the lack of advanced technologies and the milk that spills from driving.   

Nomad Diary (ND) had worked with over 41 indigenous members to collect raw camel milk and transport it to public markets. ND does this by tapping large-scale urban food markets to drive resources to rural indigenous populations. ND enables rural pastoralist communities (camel herders) across the vast territory to steward resilient food, cultural, land management practices, indigenous rights, and provides nutritious food to city residents. Facilitating this market relationship, ND reverses extractive economic and environmental trends that are deteriorating food security, nutrition, biodiversity, water cycles, cultural traditions, and global climate.

Scaling this business will provide value-added products in grocery stores and cafes, supporting thousands of more pastoralist producers, serving millions of urban food customers, and demonstrating this resilient pastoralist food producer approach for six other countries.

40% (out 1000L/per day) of camel milk en route to market spoils due to heat exposure. The cooperative lacks the technical resources to harness the full market potential of camel milk, which is a staple food among Somali Ethiopians, Christian-non-orthodox Ethiopians, and many more. Not only that, since the 1950s, the Karrayyu, a pastoralist community located in Ethiopia with a population size of 11 million pastoralists, lost 60% of their land development which has excluded and limited their ability to participate in land ownership. However, camel milk has allowed Karrayyu to be adaptive to climate change and actively participate in their own development, increasing employment opportunities and land development.

ND reduces the risk of spoiled milk by investing in large-scale technology that will bring camel milk safely to the community. This has helped Camel Farmers to maximize their profits and increase economic mobility while remaining competitive in the market. ND aims to build a dairy processing plant and scale the products we can process beyond camel milk such as yogurt, fermented milk, and pasteurized camel milk.

The establishment of the small dairy processing plant will tackle food waste and increase technical support while creating value-added products. The ND will own the plant and process camel milk and then distribute products to Addis Ababa and Adama cities. Members of the community will fully, engaged and work with ND, specifically youth. This is a starting point with the potential to expand to other pastoralist communities. Pastoralists have deep-rooted indigenous and local knowledge of animals (feeding, landscape, culture, care, etc). Technical support from ND includes connections to markets, resolving technical issues beyond their capacity, and a milk processing plant. ND and the community share ownership of the processing plant. The pastoralist community will own a 10% share of the processing plant. This will positively highlight the pastoralists’ rich food system which has been looked over by the mainstream.

Who/what is that?

In Ethiopia, there are 13 million shepherds and 11 million of them raise camels. On average, there are 1.5 million milking camels in the country that can give 7 liters of milk per day. Thus the country has the capacity of 10.5 million liters of camel milk per day. Karrayyu represents 5% of milk production, which has a geographic advantage, as they close to the capital and other cities. This will be an advantage for ND to pilot the project.  The shepherds are the most marginalized segment of Ethiopia’s population and such projects have enormous potential to tackle urban migration and mitigate the climate change crisis. ND believes the project has the potential to be scaled as sourcing the milk and diversifying the value-added product is doable as well.  

Globally, Shepherds are at the frontline of the climate crisis. Few breeds of animals, such as camels, can sustain their livelihoods by providing nutritious food and the opportunity to generate income. Food waste, particularly during the wet season is a large-scale problem because of a lack of simple technology like refrigeration. By incorporating technological advancements to eliminate the barrier of food waste within the supply chain increases market value, community development and can tackle the interwoven issues of gender and urban-rural migration as well.

Roba Jilo the founder of ND has already formed a cooperative that produces milk and the cooperative is selling the milk in the open air in the cities. Cooperative members are making income from the sales of the milk. The ambition of ND is to scale the cooperative by buying milk with the fair from the cooperative and produce value-added products. 

Camel milk is over $10 billion industry. Our primary competitors are cow distributors whose pricing is half of the camel milk and easier to access. While cow milk is our direct competition, people accustomed to drinking camel milk are willing to pay more because of its distinct taste and cultural significance. Camel milk is high in nutrients, rich in minerals, and is hypoallergenic. It has ten times the Vitamin C and three times the Iron compared to cow’s milk. ND believes investing in camel milk will benefit a large number of shepherd communities in the country. So far, there are no other organizations involved in camel milk in Ethiopia apart from local small traders. There is a low threat for new entrants.

ND will introduce existing technology to marginalized communities that lack access to such resources. We are using cooling systems to transport the camel milk to the processing plant, allowing us to expand value-added products, scaling its ability to sell at grocery stores, kiosks, cafes, and restaurants.

The existing technology will solve the food loss issues experienced during the wet seasons, as camels produce more milk than in the dry season. The technology will also solve high dependence on ecosystem services while creating a food system that allows herders to plan accordingly for each season. Thus, in return, it will maximize the shelf-life of the dairy products in the supply chain.

As camel milk is a perishable product, it needs a cooling system to minimize food waste and maximize its shelf life. The cooling industry has already contributed enormously to eliminating the food waste barrier in the supply chain. Companies such as Stonyfield, Company, and many more serve perishable consumer products such as fresh milk, yogurt, fermented milk, etc.

Global food waste stands third after the US and China in contribution to Greenhouse emissions. Food waste also exists in emerging countries like Ethiopia because of a lack of infrastructures like cooling or processing products.

As camel milk is a perishable product, it needs a cooling system to minimize food waste and maximize its shelf life. The cooling industry has already contributed enormously to eliminating the food waste barrier in the supply chain. Companies such as Stonyfield, Company, and many more serve perishable consumer products such as fresh milk, yogurt, fermented milk, etc. If the technology depends only on electric power, sometimes when a blackout happens for a longer period of time, the loss can be huge. ND will have solar panels as a backup. competition between camel milk market and cow milk might create conflict between highlanders and lowland people. ND dairy with work with policymakers to address the issue. 

 Note: Global food waste stands third after the US and China in contribution to the Green House Emission. Food waste also exists in emerging countries like Ethiopia because of a lack of infrastructures like cooling or processing products.

Currently, ND is working with 45,000 households of  Pastoralist members in the central part of the Oromia region of Ethiopia. Traditionally, men are herders while women sell milk. The goal is to increase the number of women households who will benefit from small-scale dairy enterprises where they can buy value-added products from ND and sell it to their local towns. 

By the end of 2021, ND plans to expand its operation to 300,000 shepherds who are in the surroundings of the Karrayyu region. At this stage, ND will also expand its market by franchising with local vendors, including women originally from shepherds communities.

  By 2025, ND aims to reach its operation to 5,000,000 shepherds, while expanding its market. It will also diversify its value-added products to powdered milk and cosmetics products such as soaps, shampoo, and beauty creams

ND's goal is to create financial sovereignty among millions of Pastoralists, the most marginalized group of people in Ethiopia. They are voiceless and don't have representation in the political mainstream. In addition, pastoralism has never been considered a way of life. Therefore, pastoralism is not viewed as a viable economy. Disrupting this challenge means allowing pastoralism as a viable way of life economically and socially.

Camels are the few resistant breeds of animals that can let the Pastoralists survive during the climate crisis in the harshest weather conditions. ND brings socially inclusive opportunities that allow pastoralists to live their way of life while contributing to the country's development. Eventually, the action of ND will challenge the development policy towards Pastoralists.

Additionally, camels are a tradition to nomads in Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, and Tanzania. Therefore, creating an opportunity in Ethiopia will expand economic opportunities in the mentioned countries above, where the harazon of the problem is similar to the ones in Ethiopia.  [1] 

Great!

Because we have developed, tested, and refined this strategy over several years, proving its feasibility for a very large scale, our primary barriers are now for implementation and expansion. We have already tackled the deeper, systemic challenges in how we have designed this approach.

The lack of finance to build the processing plant could affect the numbers of pastoralists we could reach by each year, and could also affect the impact we could have in the next 5 years. Also, the existing barriers that will impact the success of next year are the uncertainty of the Covid19 in the region.

The historical marginalization and exclusion of pastoralists from several social services including basic rights to education, healthcare, financial support have put the livelihoods of shepherds in difficult situations. In addition, the land-grabbing wave by multinational corporations since the 2008 economic crisis, has put enormous pressure on the herders’ land rights. Climate change and recurrent drought have exacerbated the situation, putting most of the East African shepherds in the climate refugees situation. 

From a general public policy perspective, pastoralism has never been truly considered as a viable economically sustainable way of life regardless of whether the shepherd contributes a significant figure to the GDP of the country, particularly in Ethiopia. Ethiopia remains the largest homeland to Pastoralists.

lastly, a long drought can affect milk production as well. 

ND was started by three professionals who are members of the Karrayyu community. Roba B. Jilo, the MBA graduate from the Brandeis University, is the founder of the company. He is a food activist, worked with hundreds of smallholders, particularly for shepherd communities in Ethiopia, and global as well. 

ND was established four years ago from the Camel Milk Cooperative, which has been active for more than seven years. ND was started to tackle the challenge the Cooperative is facing in terms of marketing, product development, and resource mobilization. ND has participated in some start-up challenges and has received awards that have supported the Cooperative's operational capacity. For example, ND won a $7,000 award from the Spark Starp-Up organized by the International Business school at Brandeis University and $5000 from the Heller Start-Up Challenge at Brandeis University's Heller School for Social Policy and Management. The funding went towards modifying the truck, which was identified as the most significant need from the Cooperative. 

In addition to the Founder, Roba B. Jilo, Mamo Boru is also one of the founding members of ND and is an Economist. Mamo is a member of the shepherd community and has extensive experience in livelihood development. Roba Fantalle is a veterinarian and has a deep understanding of animals' health. Roba Fantalle holds an MBA from Jima University in Ethiopia.

ND also has a deep partnership with the Nourishment Economies Coalition and has been an ambassador for ND and connected the organization to connecting ND to funders, assisted with marketing and advertisement of the business, and provided strategic counseling.

Founders are all from indigenous groups and we closely work with the community involving, youth, women and elderly that the ND benefit well the community and go beyond. 

The food system is a complex and highly neglected sector when it comes to investment. Indigenous groups like shepherds have been historically marginalized, including financial and technical support. With access to limitless resources through the SOLVE initiative, there is a huge opportunity in an untapped market to ND is thrilled to take a chance to use its maximum effort and energy to approach the shepherds' challenge using the food systems at the time of the climate crisis and pandemic.

Through the SOLVE initiative, MIT aggregates and makes the resources available for the people who have ideas that could affect individuals, communities, and the environment. ND applies to the SOLVE challenge because we believe we'll be the best fit to win the award where the money can go to the real projects that affect millions of people's lives while creating a viable local economy.

ND has been trying its best to understand which existing technology can be used to address food waste issues when it comes to dairy. In developing countries, food gets wasted because of the lack of technologies. Most of the technologies, like cooling and dairy processing, already exist to solve huge problems in the dairy industry. As almost all of the shepherds are mobile, is there a mobile dairy processing plant?

Can ND consider solar energy to run the processing plant? Does ND seek partners that help to understand better which machines can be effective in semi-desert areas? Besides, ND appreciates anyone who could connect with the powdered market for camel milk.

ND also seeks partners that would help in the revenue model and funding opportunity as well.

ND is interested in green energy, specifically solar power. African pastoralists live in the lowland part, which is semi-desert, where the sun shines throughout the year. The solar technology will enable ND to harness the energy that would run the processing plant that would process millions of gallons of milk from 11 million shepherd communities.

In connecting with the above partners, ND will have a better understanding of what kind of existing technology would be worthwhile to use in the African context where technical knowledge is limited to the cities. Using solar would be great to go green and, at the same time, to have options as energy fluctuates throughout the year.