THE ONE-HUMPED CAMEL IN UGANDA

This paper provides the first comprehensive account of the presence of camels and of camel production in Uganda. Uganda is a poor East African landlocked country. Agriculture's contribution to GDP has shrunk by 23.5 per cent in the last 30 years whilst that of the service sector has increased. Commercial and food crops are the major subsectors of agriculture but livestock add almost 10 per cent to agricultural GDP. Goats are numerically the most important quadruped livestock, followed by cattle, sheep, pigs and donkeys: there are very few horses. The one humped camel is not part of the traditional array of domestic livestock but the species started to appear in the arid northeast of the country during the 1960s/1970s. In 2008 the national camel population was about 31 000 but in 2017 may be as high as or more than 40 000. Traditional pastoral tribes have become camel keepers for the production of milk, some meat, some transport and for medical uses. Internal parasites and trypanosomes are a problem for camel health and welfare. Feed supplies in the area of camel keeping comprise many of the camel's preferred browse species. Although not a traditional species and few in number camels have the potential to contribute to food security and to the livelihoods of pastoralists in some of the remote parts of Uganda.