Hump days of their lives

The antiviral effects of camel milk have boosted sales, but Queensland farmer Jeff Flood is finding that commercially producing it is still a tricky business.

Milking herd: Summer Land camels.

JEFF  Flood never envisaged that when he became a camel-milk farmer, he would also become a go-to on corona­virus.

Just before Australia and the world went into total lockdown, Jeff — who studied biochemistry and has a background in nutritional health — posted a 20-minute video on his Summer Land Camels website explaining why his camel-milk skin care products were suddenly being ordered around the planet for their antiviral effects.

“All mammal milks have a protein, lactoferrin, that respond to pathogens, but camel lactoferrin is at least twice as effective in this immune function as any others, and is an extremely effective antiviral,” Jeff said.

Put simply, that’s why Summer Land Camel’s skin-care range — which includes 13 products, from soaps to body creams — has suddenly run off the shelf, in addition to the company’s other products.

Summer Land Camel is, according to Jeff, the biggest commercial camel dairy and milk processor outside the Middle East. Established in 2015 with his co-founder Paul Martin, who has a cattle and grain farming background, it currently has 23 staff. The 345ha Queensland property at Harrisville, 45 minutes from Brisbane, sources camels from the wild. It is milking 110, but aims to milk 1000 head a day (“first it was the drought, then bushfires, now the virus, so currently it’s hard to plan”).

MILK MADE

CAMELS are notoriously tricky, milked year on then year off, with calves needed to induce milk flow, with the herd milked in their retrofitted one-side, eight-head herringbone dairy.

Their yield is considerably less than cattle, with up to six litres a day, 3 per cent fat, and high in solids and protein.

Milk goes from the dairy straight to Summer Land’s processing facility, which pasteurises milk low and slow, about 65C for half an hour, to ensure the majority of active ingredients are not lost, while the milk is also naturally homogenised.

About 15 per cent of yield goes into fresh milk, sold in one-litre bottles from the on-farm shop, as well as across southeast Queensland health food stores.

About 50 per cent is made into cheese: fromage blanc, Persian feta, haloumi and even cheddar, sold along Australia’s east coast and exported to the US.

“It’s meant to be chemically impossible to make camel-milk cheese without adding other milks, but we’ve figured out how to do it, even hard cheese,” the 51-year-old said.

So creative is the Summer Land team they have even developed a vodka using camel whey, left over from cheese making, costing $495 for 500ml.

“It’s extremely expensive and we only make the occasional batch,” Jeff added.

CARE FACTOR

ABOUT 10 per cent of the milk is used in their skin care range, sold in pharmacies and health food stores around Australia and for the past two years exported to Hong Kong, with plans to export to China in coming months, and with current global demand on the back of coronavirus.

Jeff said the rest of the milk was frozen in a special process that ensures active ingredients remain. This milk will be dried and used in a new range — nutraceuticals — to be released mid-year.

“It would have been great to have them out now. It won’t stop the virus, but it will support people’s immunity to help protect and recover.”

Summer Land Camels also has a tourism component, with about 100,000 visitors each year taking part in tours and camel rides, as well as visiting the on-farm cafe and store.

Even though camel milk popularity appears to have reached its zenith with coronavirus, Jeff was first won over by its health benefits in the early 2000s after studying biochemistry, physiology, nuc­lear medicine and later physiotherapy, which saw him specialise in working with gut and immune health. His own teenage son Corey suffered eczema severely, but it cleared entirely after using camel-milk body cream.

“It can help a range of problems, auto-immune, inflammatory bowel, but like anything it needs to be part of a total approach to health. It’s not a panacea to all ills. Most people will have some positive impact, while others who use it have life-changing recoveries.”

ETHICS FOCUS

GIVEN this emphasis on health benefits, Jeff said their farm management was low input, minimal to no chemical use and focused on animal ethics. The wild-sourced camels are trained and broken in for six weeks.

“Some say milking camels is difficult but we have no problems,” Jeff said.

“It’s all about understanding the animal. They’re highly intelligent, they don’t spit, they’re not grumpy as long as you understand their psychology and build trust.

“If they’re fearful, you’ll get poor outcomes.”

The herd is given conventional preventive injections and if an animal is sick it is quarantined and given conventional medicine to ensure its welfare.

The farm is not certified but biodynamic methods are practised.

No synthetic fertiliser is applied to pastures, instead the biodynamic application 500 — or cow-horn manure — is spread across paddocks throughout the year, as well as composted camel manure and green manures that are tilled back to the soil.

Paddocks are not renovated, with camels feeding on mixed grasses, as well as a pellet specially designed by Summer Land Camels.

Camels are joined once a year with about 35 stud males. Because females don’t release milk unless a calf is nearby, all babies are retained. Summer Land tries to find homes for the males, but any that are left, once they reach 500kg, are processed for meat.

Jeff said when they started the company “we knew it wasn’t going to be easy”.

“It has been a difficult project on so many levels,” he said.

“Yes we will make money eventually, but you can’t afford to get emotionally fatigued.

“I can see we’re are on the cusp, we’re nearly there.”