Alxa Right Banner: A camel town in the Gobi desert

(chinadaily.com.cn)

Updated: 2016-12-14

Several camel stations have recently been founded at Aobao town, Alxa Right Banner, in Alxa League, including the camel breeding base, the camel milk demonstrative park and a scientific research center of Inner Mongolia Agricultural University.

Local herdsmen ride camels to attend an event held at Aobao town, Alxa Right Banner, in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia autonomous region. [Photo/nmgnews.com.cn]

After the inauguration ceremony for these stations, multiple activities were held including honoring outstanding local camel breeders, distributing electronic milking machines, and a camel-milking competition.

The Gobi desert’s camel breeding base and the demonstrative camel milk station were jointly sponsored by a local biotechnology company in Inner Mongolia and the Inner Mongolia Camel Research Center.

The camel base houses an area of 21,645 square meters, raising around 250 camels.

Since construction, the camel base has mainly cultivated dairy camels for milk production, hairy camels for fur production, and eatable camels for meat production.

As a comprehensive base, it provides the services of camel breeding, forage processing, and the sale of camel products, as well as researching and developing new species.

Camel products are displayed at a local Mongolian yurt at Aobao town, Alxa Right Banner, in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia autonomous region. [Photo/nmgnews.com.cn]

Known as a “camel town”, Inner Mongolia’s Alxa Right Banner has around 51,000 camels, about 20 percent of China’s total camel population and 45 percent of Alxa League’s.

At present, Alxa Right Banner has five camel feeding cooperatives, one scientific research center, two camel fur processing factories, and two camel meat processing companies, whose air-dried camel meat and saucing camel meat have already received food certification alongside organic food authentication.

Numerous camel dairy products like camel milk powder, camel milk tablet-shaped candies and liquid camel milk have been produced on a large-scale and will further boost the local economy to some degree.

Thanks to the building of such camel bases, the local agriculture and husbandry industries have been reshaped over the past few years, driving the transformation of production relations, the employment of herdsmen, and even boosting local tourism.

A local worker milks a camel during a milking competition held at Aobao town, Alxa Right Banner, in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia autonomous region.[Photo/nmgnews.com.cn]